Dead Men Tell No Tales
by phoenixyfriend
Summary: ...At least, not until the gods decide to push their issues onto another dimension. At that point, screw the rules, screw death, screw dimensional barriers, and bring on that delicious, sugary crack! Warning: features Jiraiya in a bra, Akatsuki in swimsuits, and Yachiru in character.
1. Prologue

**Dead Men Tell No Tales…**

**At least, for now.**

o.o.o.o.o

One small conversation over the largest fanfiction site in the world. One small contest to see who could come up with the most random story prompt. One goal to break a record concerning just how many PMs two young writers could send to each other.

One storyline that grew out from a few messages that no one expected.

A bra was involved. So were a few swimsuits. People met up in a _very _foreign land. And after that?

Well, do you see that fine white powder raining down from the sky? That's story-crack. It was there from the beginning. It will be there to the end. The story starts out seriously, but _that_ little dusting will make it ridiculous by the end.

Prepare yourselves, folks. Fasten your seatbelts and hold onto your hats. Make sure you didn't eat anything before you started this little story.

I hope you're all ready for a wild ride.

o.o.o.o.o

Yamamoto groaned as he read through the missive in front of him. The problem with the ryoka had only ended a few days ago, with Aizen—Aizen of all people!—revealing himself to be the mastermind behind the mess that had gone on the past several days, and leaving. He even managed to get Tousen and Gin to come with him too. Tousen was especially surprising, though even Gin was a _little_ unexpected.

The ryoka were even still in the Seireitei! And despite that, he was now being asked to get this done. Unfortunately, he really _couldn't_ ignore something like this. The dimension that the Seireitei, Hueco Mundo, and their world of the living occupied was rather closely tied to the one next to them. Problems from one sometimes managed to invade the other, and considering that said neighboring dimension was known for its reality-bending _ninja_, of all things, there were bound to be a few. Even a few souls, generally quite powerful, slipped through the cracks, most often landing in Hueco Mundo, and occasionally in the Seireitei, though they were overall quite rare.

Every dimension that had a shinigami of any kind had contact with the others. In Yamamoto's case, he was one of the only ones that knew about the neighboring dimension; only thirteen people knew, two of them not even legally. The soul king and his guard knew, as did Unohana, Ukitake, and Kyoraku, as well as Yamamoto himself and Kurotsuchi. Urahara Kisuke and Shihoin Yoruichi knew as well, but they didn't exactly have _permission_, per se.

The neighboring dimension had been on the ropes for centuries, always on the verge of collapse. _That_ problem, the three local gods chose to fix on their own. Jashin, Kami, and Shinigami blamed themselves for the problem that had occurred, and were managing it, if barely. Unfortunately, they didn't have the manpower to handle most other problems, and a fairly large one had recently cropped up, by the name of Orochimaru.

The man had learnt how to bring back the dead. This was causing the already unstable situation to become even more volatile, and Shinigami had contacted Yamamoto, asking for him to send some of his own reapers to take care of the man and anyone he may have taught the technique to.

Yamamoto didn't have much of a choice.

He couldn't send just anyone. He knew the power that the shinobi from the elemental countries of that dimension could use, and some of them, such as this Orochimaru, were liable to be Captain-class fighters. He couldn't spare a captain for that long, though, so his best bet would be to collaborate with the ninja that were there. Konoha, according to the missive, was the village that this Orochimaru had belonged to before defecting, so they would be the best to get into contact with. There was information included on the man's old teammates, one of which was the current leader of this village. Kurotsuchi could open up a path, as could Urahara, though Yamamoto wouldn't really trust either of them. He'd send a captain and their immediate subordinate, though he had to choose carefully.

Yamamoto himself couldn't be spared since he was the one running things, especially in the wake of the recent mess. Soi Fon couldn't be spared because she needed to start collecting information on Aizen as soon as possible. Unohana was still busy healing everyone. Byakuya had to be left alone to deal with the lingering issues surrounding him and Rukia. Komamura looked like a fox, which, from what he knew, Konoha had severe issues with. Kyoraku was too much of a flirt to be sent into the vicinity of a woman like that while on a diplomatic mission. No one in their right mind would send Zaraki or Mayuri, the latter of which was going to be manning the path there anyway. And, as powerful as he was, Ukitake was too sick to be going anywhere, especially in the aftermath of all the stress he'd just gone through.

That left Hitsugaya and Matsumoto. Hopefully the shinobi would be able to see past his young appearance. The 'boy' was practically the same age she was, after all.

o.o.o.o.o

Tsunade sat at her desk, leaning back in the seat as she surveyed the two in front of her.

"Forgive me if I find your claims to be a little far-fetched."

The white-haired boy nodded, serious expression not leaving his face. The tall woman behind him appeared to be somewhat absorbed with comparing her chest and Tsunade's, one contest she seemed to believe she was losing if the pout on her face was anything to go by.

"Many would."

"You won't mind if I spend some time to see how genuine your claims are."

"Of course not. If you wish, I could attempt to prove it, though I am not certain of what I could do as to achieve that objective."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow, but remained silent. She sat still in her chair for another half minute, lost in thought as she swished around the sake in her bottle.

A sudden slam alerted her guests to her decision as the sake bottle hit the desk. Tsunade stood, motioning for them to follow. "I'll have a Yamanaka check your memories for now. Come with me. We're going to T&I."

Hitsugaya Toshiro followed her without question, and didn't even glance back to see if Rangiku Matsumoto was doing the same.

Three days later, a three-man, one-dog team was dispatched to carry a message out to a certain pair of wandering, yet still undoubtedly loyal shinobi.

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto glanced over at Jiraiya as the man once more twitched in response to some unknown trigger.

"Alright Ero-Sennin, what's going on?"

"Nothing." The famed man looked back down at the table, staring into his drink angrily. Another twitch.

"Seriously, there's gotta be—"

Another twitch, and Jiraiya exploded from his seat. Seconds later, he had two men from the bar pressed up against the wall, holding them up several feet of the ground by the necks of their shirts.

"I hear you say one more word about that d*** swimsuit magazine, and I will make you wish you'd never even _heard_ the name Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin. Are we clear?"

Choking, the two men agreed. The rest of the bar had gone quiet, though conversation slowly rose back up to a low murmur hanging over the room as Jiraiya stomped his way back to his seat. He threw himself down into the chair and drained the rest of his sake in one go.

"…This is about a swimsuit magazine?" Naruto wasn't sure he'd heard it correctly. Why would the Ero-Sennin get angry about women in skimpy clothing?

"Yes."

Naruto pouted at the curt answer. "But why?" So he was whining, it didn't matter.

Jiraiya reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a magazine, tossing it over to Naruto.

The blond frowned down at the picture. There was a woman on it, and a very pretty one at that, with blue hair. Flipping through the magazine some more, he found her picture everywhere, in various bikinis and one pieces, sometimes next to a man or two as well. The men appeared multiple times inside the magazine each, also modeling swimwear. One or two seemed vaguely familiar, but Naruto couldn't really say he recognized them. The woman herself seemed to be looking at the camera with disdain that was far past what any other model Naruto had seen before had worn, and her body wasn't skinny like many models, but slim in a very muscular way; she might have even been a kunoichi.

"I still don't get it."

"You see the blue-haired woman?"

"Yeah?"

"They were talking about her." Jiraiya glared angrily at the table, hands clutched tightly enough around his mug, now of beer, that it threatened to crack. "And not in a very respectful manner either."

Naruto stared at him. "Who are you and what have you done with Ero-Sennin?"

Jiraiya just glared back at him. "Stop fooling around, idiot."

"I'm not! You never care about stuff like that!"

"She used to be my student."

…Oh.

Naruto had, in his time with Jiraiya, learned that the man was always close to his students. Close to the level of considering them his children. Even if he had poor 'parenting' skills—Naruto's little instance of being thrown off the cliff could attest to that—he was fiercely protective when the time called for it. To hear a woman that he likely saw as a daughter being perved on by random men in bars… yeah, that was a surefire way to get him p***ed off.

"Oh."

Really, what else was he supposed to say?

"She was such a good girl, too." Jiraiya was moping. "She didn't dress like most young women do, and she was really focused on the shinobi training that I gave to her and the boys. I can't think of why she would do something like this!" He had a kicked-puppy look on his face, and his head was down on the table. He really was incapable of fathoming one of his students doing something like this.

"Er… I'm sure she had her reasons, Ero-Sennin." Naruto awkwardly patted his shoulder, not really sure about how to respond to the whole thing.

"And I've spent the past who knows _how_ many years thinking that she and Yahiko and Nagato were all dead, and now I find out that she isn't. And the other two probably aren't either!"

Naruto still had no clue how to deal with the situation, and only panicked more when he caught wind of a conversation being led by two men that had just entered the bar.

"…ever bother going out with an a** like you. That chick's the idol of half the Elemental Nations by now."

"Hey, I'm not saying she would. I'm just saying I want to know if the carpet matches the drapes."

"…What?"

"See if the blue is just a dye, or if it _really _goes all the way down."

"You're a d***."

"Just ca—"

He didn't get to finish his sentence, as the next few seconds found him outside and on the ground, sobbing for mercy as a man twice his age bent his arm too far up behind his back.

"Hot _d***_, Ero-Sennin." Naruto stared at the spectacle before him, not even noticing as a large dog landed next to him, or the feral boy on its back.

"Uh…"Kiba looked from Naruto to Jiraiya and back. "What's going on?"

Naruto wordlessly held up the magazine.

Kiba frowned. "What about it? I mean, I've seen it, yeah, but why would it matter?"

"The blue-haired woman used to be his student. Those guys weren't exactly being very quiet." Naruto gestured to the man on the ground and the friend that was standing off to the side. The friend actually seemed amused, but Naruto figured that that was just because the other guy deserved it.

"Huh. Right." Kiba shook his head and held out a scroll. "Akamaru and I went ahead of Hinata and Shino, but they'll be here soon. We were sent to give this to you and Jiraiya-sama. She wants you back in the village as soon as possible."

Naruto finally tore his eyes away from the pathetic display in front of him. "What? Why? We're not supposed to be back for another month!"

Kiba shrugged. "H*** if I know. Maybe the scroll will explain."

"I'll take that." Jiraiya appeared from behind Naruto without warning and snatched the scroll away, apparently finished with the beating that he had been busy doling out.

To soft thumps alerted Naruto to two other people landing nearby. Turning, he saw two friends he hadn't gotten a chance to talk to for nearly two and a half years. He didn't exactly recognize one of them, but given what Kiba had said, there wasn't much of a chance of the hooded figure being anyone else.

"Shino! Hinata-chan!" He waved, receiving two nods in return. He frowned as he saw Hinata. "Hinata-chan? You're really red… Do you have a fever? Are you sick or something? Does Baa-chan know? I'm sure she wouldn't send you out if she knew you were sick! You should have told h—" A hand clamped down over his mouth.

"Shut up, gaki." Jiraiya slipped the scroll into an inside pocket. "We're going to Konoha, no time to talk."

Naruto stared for only a few seconds before nodding.

Five shinobi and one dog sped off.

o.o.o.o.o

"Deidara-sempai, look!" Tobi waved something in front of Deidara's face, nearly giving him a paper cut.

"The magazine came out a month ago, un." Deidara pushed him away. "We've all seen it by now. Besides, we were all sort of under disguise, so no one's going to recognize us anyway, un. We can barely recognize ourselves, un."

"But… Tobi and Konan-sama weren't wearing disguises…"

"That's because you refused to take off your mask so we took the picture from the back, and no one even considers Konan a nukenin anymore, un." Deidara turned and walked away. "Now go bother someone else. I have to go talk to Danna, un."

Tobi skipped away, down some stairs, and into a hidden room. The excited demeanor he had worn leached out, and a man of only seriousness turned to look at the emaciated man and the blue-haired woman in the room.

"Konan, Nagato." The two of them nodded in reply, but only Nagato replied verbally. Konan shot a disapproving look at the magazine in Tobi's hands, but didn't comment.

"Madara." A deep, raspy breath before he continued. "What did you want?"

Tobi tilted his head to the side, placing his fingertips together. "I need you here for a test."

"A test?"

"M-hm. I need to see if a certain time-space jutsu will work, and it would be better if you were nearby to take stock of the situation should something go wrong."

Nagato's visible eye narrowed, but he nodded. A small twitch ran through his body as the man in the orange mask clapped his hands and brightly exclaimed his eagerness to go ahead.

"**Shinda no Jigen no Jutsu!**" _Dimension of the Dead Technique!_

A flash of light, both black and white, and the room was suddenly empty.

o.o.o.o.o

"So…" Naruto looked uncomfortably over at the 'boy' that looked younger than him but claimed he was decades older. He quickly looked back over to Tsunade. "Why do I gotta come with you, baa-chan?"

"Because, despite all the stupid things he's done, I want Jiraiya there as an advisor. You're supposed to be sticking with him." She smirked. "Moreover, this might give you a lesson in diplomacy, which you're going to need if you ever want to become Hokage."

Naruto nodded. "Got it, baa-chan!"

"Who else is coming, Hime?" Jiraiya couldn't seem to decide between staring at Tsunade and staring at the _other_ voluptuous blonde in the room. "You mentioned that some other people would be coming, but you didn't mention who."

"Well, Shizune is going to stay behind to take care of things while I'm gone, but Sakura will come with us." She ignored Naruto's excited shout. "Other than that, no one. It'll just be the four of us."

Jiraiya's eyebrows shot up, and he grinned at Tsunade. "Is that so, Tsunade-hime?"

"Get your tongue back in your head, you old pervert." Tsunade growled, getting up from her chair. "Now both of you come with me. Sakura's meeting us in the lobby of the tower, and then these two," she jerked her head at the two reapers, "are going to show us to this portal of theirs leading to their dimension."

Naruto rushed down the stairs. "Sakura-chan!"

Toshiro looked over at Tsunade. "Is he always like that?"

"I haven't seen him in nearly two and a half years, but I wager a guess that he still is."

"That's one bet even you would win, Hime." Jiraiya chuckled as they all trooped out of the room.

o.o.o.o.o

"What have you done?" Konan shoved Tobi up against a tree less than a second after they landed wherever they were. It looked like a forest, but the fact that it was heavily wooded was all that really registered with Konan at the moment. She was a little more focused on trying to come up with a way to keep Tobi from running off. Fortunately, he seemed to be nearly out of chakra, which meant that his chances of dashing away into that spare dimension of his—she had heard him refer to it as 'Boxland' once while acting in his good boy guise—were comparatively low.

"Let me go, and I may just tell you, onna." He growled out to her. With an angry shove, she stepped back and pushed him away from her, down onto the ground.

"Konan…" Hearing Nagato's voice, she spun around, but whatever question she'd had died on her lips as she saw him.

Nagato was staring down at his body in wonder. He was still sitting in his machine, but his body… it looked _healthy_. His bones weren't showing. The chakra spikes were gone. He was even wearing an Akatsuki cloak, oddly enough. Carefully, ever so carefully, he levered himself up, and stepped out of his mechanized 'wheelchair.'

"Nagato…" Konan breathed. This couldn't be possible, but… She spun back around to look at Tobi and asked her question again. "What did you do?"

Tobi raised an eyebrow behind his mask as he took in Konan's softer tone. "I'm not quite sure myself…"

"What did you _intend_ to do?" Nagato asked, turning ringed eyes onto the masked man.

Tobi sighed, scratching the back of his head in apparent embarrassment. "I was trying to figure out a way to contact dead souls. Kind of like some sort of astral projection, I guess."

"You… guess?" Nagato stared at him.

"I said I wanted you there in case something happened, didn't I?" Tobi grumbled, tilting his heads so that they could tell he was looking away to the ground on the side. "I had no idea if this would work. I mean, I can access my own dimension, right? And supposedly, the place that dead souls go to is some sort of other dimension, so I assumed…"

"Why?" Konan's question came at him like an unexpected sledgehammer.

"What?"

"Why would you want to visit the dead?" She clarified, orange eye's narrowing.

Tobi was relieved that he'd had an answer prepared for just this question, one that would play into his lies of being Madara without seeming too out of character. "A couple reasons, I suppose. Izuna, the Rikudo Sennin, maybe I'd even have a little _talk_ with Hashirama along the way."

Frankly, he actually wanted to talk to the real Madara about modifying their plans because of the unexpected changes that certain pieces on the chessboard had incurred. It wasn't a very good idea to tell them that, though.

Konan's eyes lessened in suspicion, though there was still some lingering doubt present. "I see."

Nagato placed a hand on her shoulder, soft in his movements. "Let's just focus on finding out where we are and how to get back to Ame if Madara's methods are insufficient."

Konan stared at the purple-grey eyes, and nodded after several seconds. "Understood."

He smiled softly at her, and expression that hadn't been on his face for a long while. "Come."

A cough broke the mood. They turned to see Tobi waving at them. "Listen, that's sweet and all, but aren't you forgetting something, 'God'?"

He pointed at the contraption that had carried Nagato for the past several years. Nagato opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again after the machine disappeared in a cloud of chakra smoke. He looked over at Konan, who held a sealing scroll in her hand.

She sighed and shook her head at the expression she saw on Nagato's face and the tilt that Tobi's head held. "There's always a simple solution, or have you forgotten that?"

Nagato seemed to have the slightest shade of pink on his cheeks as he looked away. Tobi wasn't much better.

"Men."

o.o.o.o.o

Tsunade leaned forward in the seat she occupied in the Soutaicho's office. "This is… are you sure that Orochimaru's threat level is quite this high?"

"Unfortunately, no, as I am unaware of a large number of things concerning your world and how threats are assessed there. However, I have been assured by your dimension's Shinigami that negating him is quite important." Yamamoto put down his tea, staring straight into Tsunade's eyes. His gaze hadn't wandered to Tsunade's larger assets once during the meeting, a fact which did not go unnoticed by the woman, nor unappreciated.

"D*** it all to h***." Tsunade muttered, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes, her elbows resting on the table. "He was enough of a thorn in our side already."

"I don't doubt it, but now he is a thorn in others' as well." Yamamoto found what he could almost call a kindred spirit in the woman. She knew how difficult it was to run a military force, rogue elements and deserters included.

"I'll get to work on it. How long did you say the way back would take to set up?" Tsunade lifted her head back up and looked at Yamamoto with tired eyes.

The old man shrugged. "Mayuri told me that he needed at least another thirty-six hours."

"Great." Tsunade leaned back in her seat, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Are there any rules that I and my shinobi need to follow while in your city?"

Yamamoto raised one thick eyebrow. "None in particular come to mind besides the ones that are listed by the division's gate. If you'd like, I could order one of the captains to give you a tour, or for their subordinates to do so."

"That would probably be a good idea." Tsunade stood, turning to the door. "Well, I guess this meeting constitutes as over."

o.o.o.o.o

Chakra wasn't working.

Well, that wasn't quite accurate. More specifically, chakra wasn't working the way they were used to it working. It seemed to be working at only half power, and a very specific half at that. Only the spiritual side of the chakra was active at all when they attempted to use it, and even then not in the ways they were used to.

Nagato, Konan, and Tobi had walked through the woods until they had come upon an area that seemed to be some sort of slum. At that point, they had suppressed their chakra as much as possible, and entered a bar. Bars and pubs were, as every good shinobi knew, good places to pick up gossip and rumors, even if more sensitive information was likely to be absent.

Eventually, a man had come over to them and struck up conversation. He talked about his own life, before he had died, and asked about them. The man had quickly confirmed their own suspicions about being in the land of the dead, but had mentioned places and people they had never heard of in a way that meant he assumed that they _had_ to know.

"We were shinobi." Nagato had answered, leaving it at that. Or at least, he would have, had the man not glanced at the hitai-ate on Konan's forehead, and then suddenly flinched and stared at them with wide eyes and open mouth.

"You're from the Elemental Countries?"

"What?" Tobi hopped in, scratching at his head. "Tobi doesn't get it."

"How long ago did you get here?"

The three Akatsuki members glanced at each other, giving one another measured stares. Konan was the one that finally answered. "Several hours. We're not even very sure how we got here."

"That would explain it, then!" The man slapped a hand down on the bar. He seemed pretty excited to be the one explaining things to them. "See, there are all these rumors around, right? Most people here, we're from the Earth that we know. One planet, tons of countries, tons of languages. Some, though, they come from a different world entirely. Way I've heard it, they come from a different dimension entirely. One with countries that are all named after elements or something, and there's only one main language."

"What you referred to as the elemental countries." Nagato clarified, eyes slightly narrowed.

"Yep. Only the strong ones too. The reapers don't really tell us much, but there's some sort of dimensional rip or something, and the ones with training to be ninja sometimes slip through the cracks and end up here in the Rukongai."

"Nothing else?" Nagato queried.

"I heard something about some living souls from there coming for some sort of meeting with the main guy up at the Seireitei, but that's probably just a rumor. I mean, they said that one of them had bigger breasts than the tenth division fukutaicho. That kind of s*** is just impossible."

"Have you met any others?" Konan questioned. Tobi was being quiet, thankfully.

"One. Some guy over in the district next to us, District 64." He shrugged. "Fun guy, all things considered. Died about a decade ago, I think."

"Did he mention anything about what he did while he was alive?"

The man thought back. "Yeah, said he was some sort of revolutionary, I think. Said it wasn't quite that rare where he came from. Not much different from here though, there are revolutions everywhere; basic human nature, I'd say. He also mentioned that he'd loosened up a lot, but wished he could know what had happened after he died."

"Name? Village?" Nagato asked. If it were someone that could help them get back, or alternatively hinder their plans, they needed to know. He shrugged at the man's look. "We may have known him. At the least, we may have known _of_ him, if he was strong enough."

"Eh? Ano… I think he said his name was Yahiko, or something like that." He stared at them quizzically as Nagato and Konan stiffened, staring at each other. Tobi's fists, hidden from view beneath the table, clenched in sudden irritation.

"What did he look like?" Konan demanded, leaning forward over the table and glaring at the man.

"Orange hair, orange eyes, and a little taller than me. Looked like he was in his mid-twenties." The guy put his hands up, as if surrendering, as he peered at Konan sideways, flinching away a little in fear.

Konan sat back in her seat heavily. "Nagato… it's him. It has to be."

Nagato nodded slowly, and then turned to glare at the man. "Take us to where you met him."

"What?"

"Find him for us."

The man nodded.

o.o.o.o.o

"Oh my gosh! Ken-chan, look!" Yachiru tugged on one of the bells in Zaraki Kenpachi's hair. "Look, look! Her hair is the same color as mine!"

Yachiru jumped down and sped over to Sakura, hopping onto her shoulder to tug at the bright pink locks. "See?"

"Ow! Hey, let go!" Sakura reached back and tugged at the little girl. "Sorry, sweetie, but that kind of hurts."

"Eh? But Ken-chan doesn't mind!" Yachiru pointed over at Kenpachi who was staring at them with arms crossed and no expression.

"Right… Well, I've got a tour to go on, so—"

"We could take you on a tour, Pinky!"

"That's very nice of you, but—"

"C'mon, it'll be fun!"

"I'm sorry, but I have to follow my Shishou, and—"

"If Yachiru wants you to come, then—" Kenpachi swung an arm around her shoulders, intending to lead her away to wherever Yachiru planned to go.

"Listen to me, d***it!" Sakura finally cracked and shouted, slamming a fist into Kenpachi's ribs. Due to the fact that chakra didn't work quite right, it didn't do as much damage as usual, but the man was pushed back by a few feet.

He glanced down at his (unhurt) ribs. He glanced over at where he'd been standing. He glanced up at the fuming Sakura and brightly smiling Yachiru. He grinned. "Oh, h*** yes. You're definitely coming with us now, Pinky."

"Yay, Pinky's coming with us!"

o.o.o.o.o

"It really is him." Konan whispered.

She, Nagato, Tobi, and Random Rukongai Resident Number One were all up on a roof, watching as Yahiko—_Yahiko_—walked around with a smile on his face greeting various other spirits by name. He had obviously had the time to become a regular face in the area, and he seemed… freer than when he had been alive. Looser. More easy-going, now that he didn't have a rebellion to watch over.

"How do we—?" Konan started, but only blinked in surprise as Nagato hopped down from the roof and landed right in front of Yahiko.

"…Nagato?"

"Yahiko."

"…" Orange eyes bored into purple rings. A wide grin spread underneath them. "Seriously?"

"Do I look like I'm lying?"

"Well…" The smile turned into a smirk, which quickly disappeared as another body landed next to Nagato and spoke up.

"Please don't do the Jiraiya face, Yahiko. We haven't seen you in so long. Don't make our first impression of you a bad one."

Yahiko looked from one to the other, and back, and his smile slowly dropped. "Wait… you guys died? You're seriously dead now? How?"

Nagato looked away, up at the roof. "Not quite."

"Tobi didn't mean for it to happen! Tobi was just trying to be a good boy!" The man in question jumped down, waving his arms about in a peculiar manner. Konan brought a hand up to cradle her face, and Nagato closed his eyes in a very long-suffering manner.

"Can I go home now?" RRRNO asked, waving timidly from the roof.

"Daiki?" Yahiko glanced up, distracted from Tobi for the moment. "What are you doing here?"

The man, apparently called Daiki, pointed at the trio on the ground. "I mentioned you to them. They forced me to bring them to you."

Yahiko turned back to his friends. "You guys are d***s, you know that?"

"Tobi doesn't know what that word means." The masked man tilted his head to the side again, finger to his chin.

"Tobi?" Konan said sweetly, turning towards him, eyes closed.

The man looked over at her. "Konan-san?"

Her eyes snapped open, a glare taking over her face, her tone turning dark as her outline began to break up as paper began to lift out of her skin. **"Run."**

He ran.

"I thought chakra wasn't working…" Nagato muttered, looking over at her.

She shrugged. "Your eyes are still on. Maybe the paper is just such a part of my identity that it's become natural by this point."

Yahiko looked between the two of them. He shrugged, walked forward, spun them around, and put a hand around each of their shoulders. "We have a lot to talk about."

o.o.o.o.o

"Oomaeda." Soi Fon gestured at him, then down at the three shinobi on the ground, talking to several of the other captains. "These people are trained in ways much like the Onmitsukido. Assign tasks to the seated officers, as a test, to see if their rank is earned, or if they have grown too complacent in their places."

Oomaeda blinked at his petite captain, only to notice that she had already disappeared. He shrugged.

He peeked back at the shinobi, only to notice that the blond boy had run off alone and the woman was pounding Kyoraku-taicho and the older male shinobi into the ground. He rubbed his chin.

"Well, I always have wanted to see one of the corps members sneak a bra onto someone. 32A on the man should do it."

o.o.o.o.o

Jiraiya felt something tight in his chest as he walked through what the reapers had referred to as the Rukongai, alone. He assumed it was something leftover from the beating that Tsunade had given. His dear, sweet hime…

He heard vaguely familiar voices coming from just around the corner…

o.o.o.o.o

"Wait, you _let_ her pose for that?" Yahiko stared at Nagato. "Seriously?"

"I'm a grown woman, Yahiko." Konan sniffed. "I can make my own choices."

Nagato gave Yahiko a sidelong glance. "I'm not exactly keen on trying to stop her."

"Besides, it was all Kakuzu's idea to make money." Konan felt the need to add.

o.o.o.o.o

Wait, that sounded a lot like his old students!

That would mean they were dead… or there for reasons like his own…

o.o.o.o.o

"Oh, the cane? I won it in a bar off some old guy that said he'd been a pimp."

"You have a pimp cane?" Konan stared at Yahiko, utterly bemused.

"Yeah, isn't it awesome? I can even store it in this weird hammer-space pocket, look!"

o.o.o.o.o

Jiraiya sprinted around the corner.

o.o.o.o.o

The three stopped talking as a familiar face charged right into the space in front of them.

o.o.o.o.o

Jiraiya took in the faces in front of him with half hope and half despair. Was it really them? Were they really dead?

o.o.o.o.o

"…"

Yahiko spoke up first.

"Jiraiya-sensei?"

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: You're probably all wondering what I'm doing, starting two brand new stories off right on the New Year. Well, today's their premier day. Keep reading, though. You'll want to know a few things.**

**The introduction wasn't a joke. That is exactly how this story started. The other participant was ****Dark-heika****, and she and I are going to be collaborating to write this. Chapters will come bi-weekly, giving us each just under a month to write up our respective chapters so that we don't get too much work (we all know how many stories I've got on hold already, after all). There will also be a cover coming up soon for it, line-art by me, color by her. Look forward to this story. I'm sure you'll love it.**


	2. Oblivious Jiraiya

Chapter Two: In Which Jiraiya is Oblivious and Yachiru Likes Lollipops

"Jiraiya-sensei?"

"Yahiko…?" Jiraiya said, his eyes wide. "You're here?"

"Yep! Did you die, too, sensei?"

"No… just visiting."

"We're here on a transportation jutsu gone wrong." Nagato shared a glance with Konan before looking back at their old sensei. "We're looking for a way back now."

"You're alive, then…" He ran a hand through the back of his hair, looking at the ground, but looked up on hearing a sharp gasp to see Konan wearing an expression of… surprise? "Konan?"

"Wha… what are you _wearing_!?"

"Nothing unusual. Why?" He looked down at his clothing. He hadn't worn anything unusual today… although there was something around his chest that seemed a little off. Ah, well, he'd take a closer look at his injuries later.

"…It's… nothing, sensei…" She'd just… look away from that spot until she could ignore it…

Examining his student for himself, something came to him… that's right. "Why?"

"Why what?" He'd noticed the cloaks now, hadn't he? This wouldn't be fun.

"Why did pose in that damned magazine!?" Wait, what? "Why would you do that…?"

"Sensei, we needed the money."

"But a swimsuit magazine!?"

"Sensei," she was glaring now, "I can make my own decisions."

"There were other ways to make money! I spent years thinking all three of you were dead, and I find out you're alive only because I hear men talking about you in nearly every bar in Fire Country!" She'd never seen him look more like a kicked puppy. She really hadn't.

Nagato, however, had latched onto a different part of the conversation. "You thought we were dead?"

Jiraiya looked at him. "Why else wouldn't I have come to see you for so long?"

"Sensei, we thought—"

"Hey, sensei, who are… what the hell!?" The four turned to see a blonde-haired, orange jumpsuit wearing ninja. "Why are the Akatsuki here?"

"The Akatsuki…" His eyes shifted to his living students. "You're in the Akatsuki!?"

"Current leader."

"Second in command."

"I founded it, actually."

Jiraiya stared. His mouth was slightly open, and one of his eyes seemed to be twitching slightly. Beyond that, the old man wasn't moving.

"…I think you guys broke him."

"Why would that happen?"

"Because you're the freaking Akatsuki!"

"Jiraiya!" A blond-haired woman they all recognized (for better or worse) as Tsunade walked down the street, shocking the old pervert out of his stupor. "Have you seen Sakura?"

After a look that screamed 'we'll talk about this later' to his old students, he smiled at Tsunade. "Tsunade-hime! Look who I just found. It's those orphans from the Rain, remember?"

"Jiraiya." Her eyes were focused on his chest.

"Yes, Hime?"

"Where did you get that?"

"Get what?"

"You're wearing a bra."

"I am?" He looked down. "…So I am. When did that happen…?"

Naruto, deeming his current position to no longer be at a safe distance from the current conversation, began to back away. At first slowly, then breaking into a run as soon as he was ten feet or so away.

"He knows her a lot better than us… shall we follow his example?" Yahiko asked, his attention split between the retreating shinobi and the two Sannin. After a quick nod from his two companions, the three swiftly retreated, grabbing the running Jinchuuriki on their way to a safer position.

o.o.o.o.o

"And this is Clown-face's place!" Yachiru said happily, gesturing at the compound before them. The division seemed nice enough on the outside, although there was something about it that seemed off to Sakura. After all, a corpse being carted between a morgue and an incineration building that seemed to be used often usually wasn't the friendliest of signs.

In front of her, a man wearing the captain's garb with face paint and a very weird hat walked up to her, along with a purple-haired woman with a lieutenant's badge on her arm at his side. "Hello, little kunoichi, and welcome to the… twelfth…" He trailed off, noticing the giant man attached to her arm and his pink-haired rider. "Nemu, Code Pink!"

"Hai, Mayuri-sama." Nemu pressed a button on a remote kept inside her sleeve. In a few seconds, a man ran out holding a cage with a pair of white mice inside and put it in front of Kenpachi, running as Yachiru jumped down to look at them. Crisis averted, Mayuri turned and glared at Kenpachi.

"Get that… that _demon_ child out of my division!"

"If Yachiru wants to come here, then she can come."

Said child was currently holding a conversation with the two mice, which could apparently talk back. One of them seemed to be smarter than she was.

Kenpachi was quite wrapped up in his argument with his colleague, though. He didn't even notice when Sakura wrenched her arm free of his grip and ran for the division's gates. If she could make it that far, they wouldn't find her for days.

She turned and shouted, "You people are all crazy!" as she ran, not caring where she was going, just wanting to get away. And coming from someone on a team with Naruto, apprentice of the slug Sannin and Hokage, and just generally related to all the people that were the center of the insanity in Konoha, that was saying something.

Yachiru turned and looked after her new toy, noticing the kunoichi's escape. Giggling (it was fun to chase things, after all), she jumped back on her captain and tugged on his hair, pointing Sakura's direction. "After her, Ken-chan, after her!"

o.o.o.o.o

"Aw…" Yachiru hugged the back of Kenpachi's neck, pouting lightly. "Pinky got away…" Looking around, she smiled again, tugging at his hair. "Let's find a new way back. This way!"

o.o.o.o.o

He didn't know how he had been dragged into this. He really didn't. Then again, perhaps he should have seen this coming; there were two Akatsuki members here, after all. It wasn't likely they would just let any of the Jinchuuriki go, but still. Naruto sipped at his glass of water, looking around the bar. Shortly after fleeing from the wrath of the slug Sannin, he had been captured by the nukenin and dragged in here, and then the orange-haired one had just pushed him into a chair, sat down beside him, and told him to order something, smiling the whole time.

It was easily one of the most unsettling things ever.

Nagato had ordered some actual sake, but not as much as his companions. He had no intention of getting drunk, although Yahiko might manage that if he kept drinking as he was, as someone had to stay sober. Konan sat on one side, playing with a piece of paper (it always was fascinating, watching how the sheet changed shape so fluidly between her fingers), while listening to Yahiko talking about… life (death?) on the other side of him.

"The shinigami aren't the most useful, but I can handle myself, and I help anyone I see having problems. So how have things been for you guys?"

"We defeated Hanzo, and are now in control of Amegakure." Nagato responded. "We're currently working our way towards peace for all the elemental countries."

"Is that what you call it?" Naruto leaned forward, looking at the two. "You're killing hundreds, leading a group of S-class nukenin, and intend to murder a particular group of nine people, myself included, to do who knows what with the bijuu. How, in any way, does that lead to peace?"

"It would make a super-weapon that would cause wars that would scar the nations for centuries, if not permanently. No war would ever be fought again for fear of its use."

"Have you considered the scarring war that would have to happen first?"

"A single use of the weapon would be enough to convince people not to use it again."

"Yahiko?" Konan had, at this point, taken a greater interest in conversation. Said orange-haired shinobi had frozen when Naruto had first began talking, and had now closed his eyes and breathing deeply.

"Nagato."

"Yes, Yahiko?"

"That is the dumbest plan I have heard… pretty much ever. Konan, why are you going along with this?"

"It… seemed like a good idea at the time?"

"That's not an excuse.

Naruto glanced around. All three of the nukenin were distracted… he might as well take the chance while he could. Slipping out of his seat, he stood and casually walked towards the entrance.

He had almost reached the door when a paper shuriken pinned him to the wall. He turned back at the three Ame nin, unsurprised that Konan, having dropped out of the conversation after Yahiko switched from berating her to Nagato, had thrown her sheet of paper at him, his clone already dispelled.

Giving her a resigned almost-glare, he asked the one question on his mind. "Why?"

"Because it's unfair to make me suffer the insanity alone."

Then, the door opened, revealing none other than the orange-masked wonder… with the swimsuit magazine in one hand. Konan glared at him. "Why do you even still have that?"

"Tobi had it before because Tobi was showing it to Deidara-sempai. Tobi had it when Tobi used his new jutsu, so Tobi brought it with him."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Can I see that?" Naruto snatched the magazine from Tobi, who watched over his magazine carefully. "…I can do better." At the raised eyebrows, he quickly made a few hand seals. "Oiroke no jutsu!" With a poof of smoke, his technique took effect.

After a few seconds of general staring, Nagato regained his senses. Why would the brat make a jutsu like that!? Then again, considering how badly it had startled him, that probably had a good deal to do with it. Glancing at the others, he found Konan still frozen. Tobi, however, had tilted his head, and Yahiko looked strangely thoughtful. "…You know, for a kid who's probably still a virgin, that's not half bad."

Nagato glared at him. "It's more disturbing when you say it that way."

"Come on, you have to admit it!"

"No."

"Alright, let's do this properly: what advantages do you think Konan has over him?"

"Actually being a girl, for one. It's just disturbing with him."

"Don't I get a say in this?" Konan seemed to have regained her senses, although she was still staring.

"You're one of the contestants. You don't get to say anything."

"Tobi thinks they're both pretty!"

"Wait a second… Tobi!?"

"Maybe Tobi should have just stayed quiet."

Yahiko clenched his fists, glaring at the masked man. "You… you corrupted Nagato!"

"No, Tobi didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No, Tobi didn't."

"Yes, you did!"

"No, Tobi didn't."

"As entertaining as this is," Nagato broke in, "is this argument of yours actually going anywhere?"

"But Tobi's a good boy!"

"No, Tobi isn't a good boy! Tobi is a very bad boy!"

"Tobi… isn't a…?"

Naruto was incredibly disturbed by the whole thing. Tobi looked like he was about to cry. Squirming in an attempt to free himself from his paper bindings, he pushed against the table with all his strength. "Lemme go, lemme go, lemme go!"

"No." And with that, his struggles were halted when Konan crushed his head against her bosom.

Yahiko paused, noticing his friend's quiet almost-glare towards Naruto's current position. "Jealous?" He smirked.

The cold stare flicked to him momentarily before returning to the blue-haired kunoichi. "Why? We've both been in such a position more than once."

Shrugging, he turned back to Tobi, only to pause once more. "Where'd he go?"

"Did you try outside?"

Running to the door, Yahiko looked out, blinking when he saw the man running down the street, waving his arms frantically while yelling "Tobi is running!"

"That little… get back here!" And with that, he was gone. Sighing, Nagato stood, chasing after him.

Naruto was understandably surprised when his restraints vanished, more so when he was pulled to his feet and dragged out of the bar by Konan. "Where are we going!?"

"Nagato and Yahiko are chasing Tobi. We're following. Weren't you paying attention?"

"Not really." The kunoichi had an iron grip on his wrist. Giving up, he ran behind her, allowing her to just drag her to their destination.

When they finally came to a stop, Tobi had been cornered, with the two arguing Sannin on one side and Yahiko and Nagato on the other.

"Nowhere to run!" Yahiko laughed, grinning with what bordered on a slasher smile. He normally didn't do this kind of thing. Really, he didn't. This would be a one-time exception.

His attention drawn by the maniacal laughter, Jiraiya glanced over at the five, blinking. "Konan!" Ignoring his hime for a moment, he turned to his student. "I'm a little busy at the moment, but we'll finish with talking about the magazine later." He almost turned back to his hime, but stopped when he noticed Konan's eye twitching.

"That's it."

"Kona—"

"No, don't say anything. I am sick and tired of this. I can take care of myself!"

Yahiko grinned warily, running a hand through his hair. "We never said you couldn't, Konan."

"Don't start, you're all equally guilty. Every single time I do something helpful, I get lectured, ridiculed, and talked down to. I'm an S-class nukenin for Kami's sake!"

"Tobi understands."

"Don't think you're spared."

"Tobi is scared now."

"Every nukenin above A-rank has killed, slaughtered, disemboweled, torn apart, and eviscerated countless enemies, and yet _I'm_ treated like some glass doll!"

Naruto, in the meantime, had created a Rasengan and began dropping leaves into it, bored. In the corner of his eye, he noticed movement. "Where do you think you're going?" he whispered harshly, afraid of bringing the kunoichi's wrath on _him_, too.

"Tobi isn't an idiot. Tobi is leaving while Konan-sama is distracted." Nodding to himself, the orange-masked ninja crept away. Naruto briefly considered saying something, then, realizing he didn't really care, decided to go back to his leaves (they were beginning to form a lovely spiral pattern on the ground).

_I'll call it a Konoha Rasengan._

"Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? Inadequate, redundant, and unimportant! In conclusion, you're all idiotic, chivalrous jerks!"

Finishing, Konan took a few moments to breath. Nagato and Yahiko appeared at least somewhat guilty, each in their own way. Tsunade watched with borderline approval, while Jiraiya mumbled something about his 'little girl, all grown up'. Naruto, however, had a completely different reaction.

"Can I go, now?" he asked, watching tiredly.

"No."

"I find you amusing, so… nope."

"Not until we can extract the Kyuubi."

"Why don't we just go out for ramen?" Jiraiya spoke nervously. He really needed to avoid leaving these four alone, didn't he?

o.o.o.o.o

Flipping through the magazine, Tobi idly searched for his own image. Konan would still be mad at him, after all. It'd do no good to hang around until the woman had had sufficient time to cool down again. He froze, however, as a heavy presence, dark with a lust for blood, yet not evil in itself, approached.

The presence revealed itself in the form of a giant man with spiked hair (were those bells?) and an eye-patch in a black shihakusho with a white obi and white haori fluttering out behind him, the edges tattered. A pink-haired midget was lazily clinging to one shoulder, talking to him. It wasn't long before she spotted him, though. Her eyes went wide with wonder as she tugged at the giant's hair, pointing at Tobi once she was satisfied she had his attention. "Ken-chan! Ken-chan! It's a…" Tobi tilted his head, curious. "Lollipop person!"

…He didn't really know how to respond to that.

"What do you think he tastes like, Ken-chan?"

But he did know how to respond to _that_. As he ran down the streets, screaming bloody murder (no, it wasn't girlish in the slightest), he was grateful the more powerful of his pawns weren't around for this; he wasn't certain he'd be able to live it down otherwise.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N- Hello, dear readers~! It's a pleasure to meet you all. As I'm sure you know, I am Dark-heika, authoress and procrastinator extraordinaire… Be sure not to think too hard on that last bit.**

**In any case, I get the privilege of explaining a wonderful feature added in to you this chapter: Untold Tales: Challenge Mode. You see, Phoenix and I decided that we were having such fun writing out these chapters, but we don't have time to get to all the wondrous things that come out of our little thread… so, why not share?**

**The ideas featured in this little corner are free for the taking, so feel free to type these up in form of one-shots, stories, et cetera whenever you wish. All we ask is that, should you post one, credit must be given to both of us, and that you PM at least one of us as a notification that you intend to take up the project in question; we want to see what you come up with, after all~!**

o.o.o.o.o

Untold Tales: Challenge Mode

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara and Hidan decide to troll the Akatsuki by faking a relationship. It evolves to the point that each and every member is convinced they're dating a different person. The conditions are as follows:

-Only one person can get the right idea and think they're dating each other.** (From Phoenix: I suggest Itachi.)**

-Someone must believe at least one of the two is in love with _them_.

-Hilarious matchmaking attempts must ensue for the 'pairings' that certain members believe in (if they don't believe their subjects are together already).

-Konan retains the right to drag Leader into her attempts, but beyond that, Leader must not care.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Phoenix here, and I hope you're liking this so far. Two things:**

**First, I need to say something about the Untold Tales challenges. When someone takes us up on a challenge, I'll come back and note that, so that you can all go and find the stories as they are put up, as well as mentioning in whichever chapter is to be posted next. Also address all concerns about minor typos and formatting to me, since I'm the one posting and can more easily fix those issues since I have access to all the finalized documents and the posting.**

**Second, I've noticed that this story isn't quite as popular as some of my others, so I figured I may try something I've seen in a few other stories and suggest things for you to ruminate on in reviews. For this chapter:**

**- How jarring is the difference in writing style? Is it a good thing or a bad one?**

**- What do you think about Yahiko learning about Nagato's plan, particularly as he's been in Soul Society long enough to have heard about atomic bombs and their after-effects?**

**- How many of you noticed the little reference she put in about ****Pinky and the Brain****? I know I didn't, not until she pointed it out.**

**- Jiraiya's ignorance about wearing a 32A bra. Just… comment on that, and you'll probably have a few lines.**

**- The pun of a Konoha Rasengan (Konoha does mean leaf, after all), as well as the presence of the Rasengan at all. You read in the last chapter about chakra not working, so exactly what is going on there, in your opinion? We already know, of course, but we always enjoy guesses.**

**- Kenpachi's many cameos. Annoying or amusing?**


	3. Of Course They're Coming Along

_Oh, __**Kami-sama**__, this is awkward._

Naruto didn't have a problem with the ramen, not really. In just a few minutes, he would be getting his favorite food and probably scarfing it down like a madman.

No, the problem was that he was in the ramen restaurant with his perverted teacher, two uncomfortable Akatsuki members, and a rather angry dead man. Though, the dead man wasn't all that angry anymore and looked like he actually had a pretty good sense of humor when he wasn't freaking out at his friend for doing terrible and stupid things.

Honestly, he seemed pretty exhausted and exasperated now. He was explaining about something that had happened in this dimension's living world, called an atomic bomb.

"…and there are still wars going on, all the time! I've met a ridiculous number of war veterans that have died in just the last few years, and I even run into ones that are younger than genin sometimes, brainwashed so that they get sick if they _don't_ see blood. Yeah, humanity's done whatever it could to prevent having to use nukes again, but that hasn't done anything to change the fact that there are still wars happening!"

"Please let go of me." Nagato leaned away from Yahiko, a little disturbed. The man with the orange hair had been holding him by the shoulders, with an almost crazed look in his eyes.

"If it means anything," Konan added in, "Your death traumatized us even further than we already were, especially after all those rods and things slammed down and impaled Nagato."

"You _what?_" Jiraiya looked over at Nagato. "Where? Why? How?"

"Everywhere. The Rinnegan, presumably. I used a Rinnegan technique." Nagato deadpanned.

"I don't see anything…" Naruto looked him over. Were they just invisible, or what?

"My body appears to have returned to full health with my travel to this dimension." Nagato stated primly.

"Full health?" Jiraiya and Yahiko demanded at the same time. They glanced at each other, and then rounded on Nagato again.

"I'd rather not talk about it."

Jiraiya opened his mouth to ask another question, but was cut off. "I'd really rather not talk about it."

Yahiko snorted and turned to Naruto. "What about you, kid? What's your story?"

Naruto blinked. "I…" Where should he start? The Kyuubi, probably…

Naruto started with the Kyuubi attack. He talked about growing up in Konoha, about Sakura-chan and Iruka-sensei and Ichiraku ramen. He talked about his team, and the thing with Zabuza and Haku, and the Chunin Exams. He talked about Orochimaru, and going to get Tsunade. He talked about—

"—that Sasuke!" Naruto grumbled. "I mean, I get that he wants to kill his brother. I understand why he wants to do it, even if I think revenge is kind of stupid, but did he really have to go off with that snake freak?"

At some point, it had changed from telling his life story and into… psychological counseling? Yahiko seemed pretty good at that, actually, but it was kind of weird.

"People do strange things for power sometimes." Yahiko mused, tapping his chopsticks, still unbroken, against the table. He glanced towards the door to the kitchens. "What's taking them so long?"

"It's just, I mean, I considered him my best friend, you know? And then he runs off, and when I try to get him to come back to Konoha with me, he shoves his hand through my chest, and—"

"He _what?_" Yahiko stared at Naruto, horrified. "You say he was your best friend? And he tried to _kill_ you?"

"Hey, your best friend used your body as some sort of undead proxy."

Yahiko waved a hand, dismissing it. "Totally different. I was already dead and he knew I wouldn't care. You know, if it had stayed at just that. I'm far angrier about the world-killing idea."

"It wasn't a—"

"No, Nagato, you're still in a time-out for trying to cause peace via weapons of mass destruction." Yahiko waved a hand to quiet down his friend with less than stable sanity. Konan patted Nagato on the shoulder, though she also suppressed a grin. It had been so long since she had seen these two argue and squabble like this.

"I think Sasuke's mind was being affected by the curse seal or something, but—"

"That doesn't excuse anything!"

"I know!"

Jiraiya had to refrain from pinching the bridge of his nose or massaging his temples. He should have realized that Naruto and Yahiko would get along well. It shouldn't have been such surprise. But it was, and now his head was hurting from just how well the two meshed. Even Nagato and Konan, neither of whom had shown more than a glimmer of emotion so far, barring Konan's feminist outburst, looked like they were getting a little tired of it all. Yahiko was like an older, slightly (so very, very slightly) more mature version of Naruto.

"I thought I only had to deal with this when Hidan and Deidara are in the same room." Nagato muttered, swilling around some mild sake in a glass.

Konan agreed, her tone low. "Don't forget about Tobi in idiot mode."

"Don't remind me. Please."

Jiraiya looked over, still a little… disturbed by the fact that his old students were Akatsuki or dead, the Akatsuki ones were after his new student, and the dead one was currently having a rather inflamed conversation with said new student. Things should not have happened this wa—

"I'll help you!"

Jiraiya did a spit-take, spinning around to face Yahiko and Naruto, mouth wide. On the other side of the table, Nagato and Konan stared as well, eyes very wide.

The waiters somehow took that short pause to finally deliver their food.

"You… what?" Naruto blinked, not even noticing the ramen, which was a feat.

Yahiko shrugged. "I don't like the way your story's heading, so I figured I could try to help and turn it around. You guys already have transportation, can't be too big of a deal to get Nagato and Konan along, and I figure I can annoy the shinigami running the thing into letting me come along. They're always anxious to get shinobi out of the dimension when they can anyway, so…"

Naruto nodded slowly. "Right… I… I guess we can ask Baa-chan, right Ero-Sennin?"

Jiraiya blanched at the question. How the h*** was he supposed to ask Tsunade about bringing an old dead student back and bringing along two others who were diametrically opposed to Konoha and oh Kami this was going to fail so badly and Tsunade would hate him and he'd probably never be able to feel anything again.

"Uh, Ero-Sennin? You okay?" Naruto waved a hand in front of Jiraiya's face. He appeared to be catatonic.

"Naruto!" A mildly angry, somewhat confused, and overall exasperated female voice came from outside the restaurant. Even as an expression of mingled horror, fear, and excited joy crept its way up Naruto's face, Yahiko was the one that saw her first.

"Whoa, pink hair!" Then he fell into thought, and glanced back and forth between Konan and Sakura. "Nah, Konan's still more exotic."

Konan just sent him a dead look, not amused in the slightest.

Sakura barged into the restaurant, and Naruto finally got a good look at her. Sakura's hair was messy, and she was missing a sleeve, there was even a mark that indicated where a sword hat cut through her dress at the abdomen, though there was no blood, so she had probably healed the wound if there ever was one in the first place.

No wonder she sounded angry. What the h*** had happened to her?

Sakura looked at the three Ame nin, and then just growled at Naruto. "Move over, _now_."

He complied. "Sakura-chan? What happened?"

"Remember the little girl that kept calling me Pinky?"

"Yeah…"

"Remember the huge guy whose shoulder she was clinging to?"

"Yeah…?" Naruto was getting a bad feeling about this.

"They happened."

"Oh, that would be the eleventh division leaders." Yahiko mentioned. At questioning looks, he added a few names. "Kenpachi Zaraki is the taicho, and the little pink-haired girl that's always following him around is Kusajishi Yachiru, the fukutaicho. Sweet girl, from what I've heard, but a little… blood crazy."

"Yeah, well, that sweet little girl and her psychotic guardian just ran me ragged and repeatedly tried to kill me." She glared down at the bowl that was placed down in front of her by Naruto. She glanced up, noticing that, of his original five bowls, one was now missing… and it was probably the one that was now in front of her.

"You look like you need it." Was Naruto's simple answer.

"…Thanks." Sakura muttered, pulling the dish closer. She started eating, albeit slowly and not really tasting what she put in her mouth; next to her, Naruto began to gobble his first bowl down, though no one else moved to eat yet. She looked over at Yahiko, and then Nagato, and then Konan. She looked back over to Naruto.

Sakura slowly swallowed and put her chopsticks down. "Naruto?"

"Yeah?"

She turned to him, smiling sweetly. "Why are there Akatsuki members sitting at the table?"

"Well, I'm _dead_, so—"

Sakura turned a glare on him. "I asked my teammate. Not you."

"Ano, Sakura-chan, it's not really…" Naruto trailed off, unsure of how to phrase things.

"Well?" Sakura's arms were now crossed, and she was glaring at Naruto. To be fair, she had plenty of reason to be angry after the rather… _trying_ morning she had had thus far.

"Uh, well, it turns out that all three of them were old students of Ero-Sennin's, and Yahiko," Naruto pointed at the man. "Well, he's been dead for the past couple 'a years,"

"Over a decade, actually." Yahiko cheerily interjected.

"And Konan and Nagato have been here for the past couple of hours after a friend of theirs messed up some sort of dimensional travel technique…" Naruto paused, hand to his chin, trying to figure out what he had just said, since he was just repeating the things that the Ame trio had said, and didn't quite understand it himself.

"Tobi is _not_ our _friend_." Konan muttered in mild disgust.

"And you're eating ramen with them because…?" Sakura ignored Konan and raised a condescending eyebrow in Naruto's direction.

"Jiraiya-sensei offered to pay." Yahiko grinned at Sakura and leaned forward. "How about you, girly? You're asking all these questions 'bout us, but we don't even know your full name."

"Haruno Sakura. Apprentice to Senju Tsunade of the Densetsu no Sannin, the Godaime Hokage. I'm a medic and close-range fighter." Short, clipped, and to the point. This was the nature of many of Sakura's 'conversations' when angry.

"Oh, cool. I'm Yahiko. I died a long time ago. These two are Konan and Nagato, but they went a little crazy after I died so I've spent the last hour talking some sense into them."

Further conversation was interrupted when Jiraiya suddenly did a spit-take, glaring down at his ramen. There had been other food on the menu, but as he'd offered ramen to the others, it would have felt a little odd to buy something else.

"What the—Who the h*** made this stuff?! It's disgusting!" He dabbed at his tongue with a napkin, and then took the glass of water to try and wash some of the taste out of his mouth. "Did you guys—"

Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato, all of whom had been waiting for their ramen to cool, took a taste from their food. Nagato's was fine, but Konan and Yahiko both found that their food was… subpar.

"Eh? I didn't find anything wrong with it…" Naruto stared at his remaining two bowls, and slowly took a taste from each. On the first, his face scrunched up in disgust. "I think it's… tangerines and curry? With some crab?" He tried the second, which was a basic miso ramen.

One of the waiters ran over. "I'm so sorry about this. One of the ryoka that recently came by asked if she could try cooking something in the kitchens, and we didn't realize how… _eccentric_ her tastes were. Unfortunately, we weren't able to stop all the bowls from leaving the area. We'll provide you with a normal replacement, I assure you."

"I'd appreciate that." Yahiko assured the man, who nodded as though the two knew each other. They probably did.

"Ignoring the fact that we've just eaten food of varying quality and are currently at a table with people who should be our worst enemies—" Sakura began, her tone much calmer than just a short while earlier.

"I resent that." Yahiko interrupted. Sakura kicked him under the table, not even looking away from Naruto and Jiraiya.

"—what are we supposed to do? Shishou is still touring the fourth division and talking to that Unohana lady, and we were all told to stay out of trouble. _Right_, Naruto?"

"Yeah… we saw baa-chan a few minutes before we came here, actually." He admitted. "She was beating up Ero-Sennin for a while, and then he ran away, and then he found these guys, and then I found them, and then baa-chan showed up and started asking Ero-Sennin about why he was wearing a bra."

"Why he was _what?_" Sakura gaped at Jiraiya, ignoring the snickers coming from Yahiko.

"I don't know either," Naruto admitted, "But I've learned not to ask questions."

Sakura made a defeated noise, slid her bowl out of the way, and let her head fall to the table. "Why me…?"

Konan hesitantly patted the top of Sakura's pink head. "It gets better. Eventually."

Sakura just turned her head and glared at Konan through her hair.

"So…" Yahiko slowly said. "Do I get to help you guys out or what?"

o.o.o.o.o

Orihime whistled as she walked along. She had just been asked to leave a kitchen that she had been practicing her cooking skills in, but it was alright. It was almost rush hour after all. She would probably just get in the way. They were _professionals_, after all.

She blinked as she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. There were some people going down the street, all in a group. And most of them looked kind of weird. There was a girl with pink hair, dragging along a boy with _whiskers!_ And the old man had some cool tattoos, and the man with the orange hair had orange eyes, too, though he looked a lot more normal than the others, and there was a woman with _blue_ hair, in a shade that Orihime hadn't seen yet, even in the Seireitei, and a man with eyes that looked like, like, like ripples in a pond when you threw a rock in! Or a spaceship going into hyper-drive!

And none of them were shinigami, since they weren't wearing the shihakusho, but she'd talked to Matsumoto-san a little over the past few days, and practiced sensing reiryoku, and they had _a lot_.

She followed them, mind a-whirling with interest.

o.o.o.o.o

"Sakura-chan…"

"No, Naruto. I don't care how much authority Jiraiya has. If we are doing _anything_ like this, we are asking for permission from Tsunade-shishou."

"But…" Naruto struggled against the vice-like grip that she had around his wrist, and then resigned himself to pouting. Why was he just getting pulled around by women today? It just wasn't fair!

The four adults—though the applicability of such a term in concerns to Yahiko sometimes came into question, considering his apparent lack of maturity—trailed along behind, an air of discomfort and awkwardness still surrounding the three living ones. Despite this, Naruto still envied them, because their wrists weren't caught in the small hand of medic with super-strength. He didn't even know where they were going.

Sakura kept the placement of the twelfth division firmly in mind as trudged along.

In all his grumbling, he somehow managed to miss the fact that Sakura had stopped walking, and slammed into her as she did so.

"Ne, Sakura-chan! What did you stop for?" Naruto rubbed his nose, which had collided rather painfully with the back of Sakura's head.

Sakura just pointed ahead of them, at…

"Both a vicious fighter and a truly stunning woman!" The fairly effeminate man, a shinigami judging by his shihakusho and Yahiko's earlier stories, was practically fawning over Tsunade. "You are a combination that creates true beauty!"

Tsunade was summarily unimpressed. Her arms were crossed across her chest, her lips were pursed, and one delicate eyebrow was raised in a sardonic manner. She practically drawled her answer, a tone that she normally only took while either drunk or in the presence of someone she particularly disliked. "Like I haven't heard that before."

"Oh, you do so wound me with your p—"

"Oi, baa-chan! We've got a… problem?" Naruto started off shouting, but trailed off and turned questioning partway through. He glanced back nervously at the dead or supposedly evil ninja standing behind him and turned back to Tsunade. "Can we talk you for a minute?"

"Sure, brat! Just let me get rid of this idiot!" Tsunade called over her shoulder before turning back towards the effeminate man with the feathers on his face, only to find that he was already gone.

"—and I was following them because they've got funny hair and I haven't seen anyone in the Seireitei with hair that's _that_ blue, or even blue at all, and one of them has whiskers and another has eyes that look like a hyper-speed boom and—"

The shinobi turned to see that the man was listening to what was apparently a young girl babble on. From the sounds of it, she was babbling on about them. The man, who was, indeed, the fifth seat of the eleventh division, Ayasegawa Yumichika, listened on in confusion. His face had originally been open, somewhat friendly, and even seemed to carry a hint of cheerfulness to it, but it had descended into befuddlement as the girl sped on, pointing at the shinobi.

"…Huh." Naruto shook his head, and turned back to Tsunade. "Baa-chan, he wants to help bring Sasuke to Konoha." He jerked at thumb over his shoulder, and Yahiko waved at her with a close-eyed grin on his face, one reminiscent of Naruto in his earlier years, but holding far more genuine happiness… and perhaps a side of condescension as well.

"…Are you insane, gaki?"

"Baa-chan!" Naruto shouted, once again angry. He froze as an arm was slung around his shoulder.

"Aw, c'mon! I'd love to come! And besides, he tried to kill his teammate and then went nukenin. Anyone that does that kind of s*** deserves what's coming to them." Yahiko continued to grin, though there was now a malicious side to it as well.

"Eh? Someone did that?" The girl that Yumichika had been talking to popped up out of nowhere and stared at Yahiko, horrified. Literally, _nowhere_. There wasn't even a puff of smoke or a sound of wind to indicate a shunshin or shunpo.

"Oh yeah, totally. I'm asking if I can come along with them to get him back." Yahiko was maddeningly nonchalant about the whole thing. Then he leaned closer to the girl—his arm tugging against Naruto's neck—and whispered. "We have to save him from an evil mad scientist snake ninja."

The girl's eyes widened comically and then she turned to Tsunade as well, hands clasped beneath her chin. "Can I come too?"

Tsunade stared for several seconds, and then her jaw clenched, and her eyes narrowed.

"No."

And then there were two _supposed_ adults with remarkably bright orange hair (why did Naruto look jealous?) trying to give her the puppy-dog eyes.

What the h***? No, seriously, what?

"Please?" Yahiko whimpered, bottom lip quivering. "I've been dead all this time… I want to see the world again! There's no one here from home!"

The girl didn't say anything, but her eyes were so large and pleading that she didn't even need to _try_ to guilt-trip Tsunade to make her feel uncomfortable.

"I came here because they needed someone to do a favor since they don't have time for it. I have to keep Orochimaru from bringing back the dead. Bringing _you_ back is going to go completely against what I've been told needs to be done."

"Oh, c'mon. I'm just one person…" Yahiko wheedling.

"And I'm not even dead! Yet." The girl pointed out. Tsunade stared at her.

"Then what the h*** are you doing here?" Let it be remembered that Tsunade's sense of tact never had been and never would be particularly well-developed.

"Ah! I came here with Kurosaki-kun to save Rukia-chan! And Sado-kun and Ishida-kun and Yoruichi-sama came along too!" She nodded quickly, and a short nod from the effeminate man—he hadn't left yet?—confirmed her words as the truth.

"Well, you still belong to this world, so I can't really—"

"Excuse me?" Yumichika interrupted. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I doubt that Kurotsuchi-taicho will care. In fact, he'll probably encourage it if he can get her to bring along a few measuring devices."

Tsunade's teeth gnashed. She pointed at Yahiko. "And what do you suggest I do about him?"

Yumichika shrugged, a little uncomfortable. "Talk to Yamamoto-soutaicho?"

"I doubt he'll agree to us bringing these two along."

o.o.o.o.o

"I can't believe he agreed to us bringing these two along!" Tsunade wasn't exactly happy. She glared at the newest occupant of the supposed waiting room. "And when did you come here?"

"Tobi just got here a few minutes ago." The voice coming from behind the mask was high-pitched and childish. It matched his puerile pose, gripping the seat and kicking his legs back and forth.

"And why should we—"

"We're not taking any chances leaving him here." Nagato cut her off. He didn't flinch when Tsunade turned her glare on him. "Are you telling me that you would want to leave _him_ alone in the Seireitei?"

"Tobi doesn't want to get chased by the little girl anymore! She wants to eat Tobi!"

People stared at him, and then slowly turned away, uncomfortable.

"I… I suppose I see your point." Tsunade ground out, "but that doesn't mean I'm happy with it."

"I wasn't expecting you to be."

"Excuse me." A soft, monotone voice caught their attention. At the door stood a young, voluptuous woman with long hair and no expression. "Kurotsuchi-taicho is ready for you now."

She gestured to the open doorway, and waited for the shinobi to file through before following.

"Nemu! Come over here and hold the controls!" A cold, seemingly perpetually angry voice came loudly from above, on a platform that they couldn't see onto.

"Hai, Kurotsuchi-taicho." Nemu, as the girl was apparently called, nodded and went up onto the platform. A man in rather disturbing makeup came down, and several shinobi felt a chill run up their spines as the thought of Orochimaru crossed their minds for no discernible reason.

"Which of you is the dead one?"

Yahiko raised a hand as if an Academy student trying to answer a particularly difficult question. "That would be me."

"Is your body still in a usable condition?"

…

"Well?"

Yahiko pointed at Nagato. "Ask him."

"D*** it, Yahiko." Nagato grumbled. He sighed and turned to Kurotsuchi. "Have you ever heard of the Rinnegan?"

Five minutes later…

"You can't have them."

"But… but my studies! For _science_, you fool!"

"Orochimaru said the same thing. You can't have my eyes."

"What about—"

"Or a DNA sample."

"How about—"

"Or a sperm sample."

"But—"

"Or any children I may or may not have."

"When—"

"Or my eventual corpse."

Kurotsuchi quieted down and glared. Several sniggers were being contained behind Nagato, who refrained from turning around to glare at them as well.

"If you're quite finished…" Tsunade strode past Nagato and Kurotsuchi, toward the large structure of the soon-to-be portal. "Can we get going?"

"What about my body? And my soul?" Yahiko made disturbingly dramatic motions, causing certain members of his so-called audience to snort in disbelief.

Kurotsuchi perked back up. "Oh, in that case, you are going to have a little trouble syncing up to it if it's not in the same condition as your soul, and from what I've heard, it _isn't_. I've also been told that you can't even get to your body right away, so I took the liberty of having a gigai made for you until you can get to it. Once you do get to your body, there are pills that you could take to enhance your synchronization after someone heals up all the damage and…"

He continued to babble, and various people tuned out, though Sakura sidled up to Konan, the closest person to her that was still paying attention.

"When did he have time to make a fake body?"

And they hadn't even gotten to discussing Nagato's less-than-healthy state.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: When we first started coming up with this story, there were a lot of things that we left out for one reason or another, so I've had to improvise on some things, like what Nagato and Yahiko are going to be like/going to be doing once they get back to the land of the living in the ninja-verse, or what happened to Tobi after the bar scene.**

**Unfortunately, I couldn't script this chapter up in time to get it to Dark-heika for review and her own comments, so you'll have to PM her if you'd like those.**

**o.o.o.o.o**

**Untold Tales: The Fake Relationship**

**This one is told in the same way we've been coming up with story plots since the beginning. There may be a few parts left from conversations we had on the PM thread, but I think I managed to edit most of those out, since I cut some three or four thousand words cutting out conversation.**

**(How is this part longer than the actual chapter?)**

Sasuke tells all his fangirls that he's gay in an effort to stop their incessant advances.

Sasuke regrets his actions when he meets the yaoi fangirls.

He asks Naruto for help with the ruse, due to his pranks, and manages to chase most of them off as a result of their mothers trying to get them away from the Kyuubi brat.

Meaning he convinces everyone (with the exceptions of the smarter ninja/ the ones who are closer to him, who find it somewhere between hilarious and troublesome) that he's gay for Naruto.

Sakura keeps trying, though.

Later on, when they form Team 7, Sakura is greatly surprised to learn that they're not together, and are just really good friends (mostly due to years of pretending to be together). She joins the ranks of Konoha who find it hilarious.

And STILL doesn't give up on him. He finds it annoying at first, but eventually realizes that she's actually putting in effort to try to not be as annoying. She tells Hinata after the girls talk one night...

And Hinata refuels her efforts to gain Naruto's heart. Eventually, the whole scam escalates until everyone who's not in the know (which includes Neji now, as well as Hiashi. Said clan head doesn't particularly care, and is just glad to know the rumors are false, and Neji empathizes with Sasuke due to his own fangirl problems, and would probably try a similar approach if Lee weren't... Lee) believes the girls are trying to make it a foursome. In fact, some believe it already is one.

But Lee is perfect fangirl deterrent! Ahem... Kiba tries to act on his small crush on Hinata to try and draw her away from what people believe to be the perfect gay couple. Several leagues away, Itachi hears about his little brother's... exploits.

Itachi, being the overprotective brother he is, decides he best thing to do is to assess the situation for himself.

On the flip side, Hana takes the option of following HER little brother around with a video camera to catalog his fruitless attempts to woo Hinata.

Deidara follows Itachi to Konoha, wondering how he'll take it and wanting to video tape his reaction should anything amusing happen. Naturally, due to the way Akatsuki works, this means Kisame and Sasori are elsewhere enjoying a quiet meal while their partners do insane things involving Itachi's little brother.

Lee gets in on the 'action' by finally meeting Sakura and trying to woo her. Ino sees everyone else getting involved, and starts trying to get to Sasuke again, despite the fact that her crush was pretty shallow the whole time. At one point, Deidara approaches her with an offer to 'help'...

And provides said help by trying to blow up the 'competition'. However, since, by this point, Itachi has figured out that Naruto is not Sasuke's gay lover but is actually his best friend who's just keeping the fangirls off his brother's back (he has traumatic memories of them himself, and therefore fully appreciates just what said Jinchuuriki is doing for the boy), he feels the need to step in and defend the fox boy. Which, of course, leads to Sasuke trying to figure out whether to try to kill his brother, or whether to pull Naruto out of the line of fire while he can.

Ino pulls off an 'In Love With Your Carnage' in concerns to Deidara, but he brushes her off as too young for him. She fumes and promises to come back after him in a few years. Meanwhile, TenTen was drawn to the explosions and reacts in much the same way. Sasuke takes the free time as an option to try and kill Itachi, and the 'fight' (which isn't really a fight, because... Sasuke is twelve and a genin, and Itachi is seventeen/eighteen and an S-rank) causes enough stress on Naruto that he accidentally taps into the Kyuubi's chakra, trying to take out Itachi. The Kyuubi complies without taking away too many of his mental faculties, meager as they are, since he wants Naruto to actually have a good shot at taking an Uchiha down.

Itachi gets somewhat irritated rather quickly, considering he's now fighting a Kyuubi-fied Naruto. Sasuke, however, pauses because that's some serious power rolling off Naruto, and he's never seen anything like it.

Deidara, in the meantime, is beginning to discover the horrors of fangirls for himself, and runs to his danna to take cover (which, of course, amuses Kisame).

Hinata rushes in to try and placate him, and Kisame feels the Kyuubi chakra from where he is, as do Sasori and Deidara. He rushes off, as Samehada is hungry and wants Bijuu chakra.

Neji realizes that TenTen has fallen for a nukenin, and regrets declining her earlier offers of a date in favor of training. Now, the tables are turned and HE is the one trying to woo HER. Chouji realizes the same thing about Ino, and starts to actually be proactive trying to get a date with her, whereas before he had been too shy to ask and she had been obsessed with Sasuke. Shikamaru and Shino commiserate over the insanity of their compatriots, and congratulate each other on being the only two not caught up in the pairing nonsense. Far away in Suna, a girl with a giant fan sneezes, which results in her little brother threatening her life for the second (and a half, since there was one threat of serious bodily injury without actual death implied) time that week.

Sasori tries to follow, but is held back by Deidara, who insists that they leave the village immediately while he's still in minor shock to avoid traumatization.

Elsewhere, Itachi decides to knock out Naruto via Mangekyo (which is one of the few non-fatal things he can do to pierce the Kyuubi cloak... he even gives him a lovely ramen-induced daydream) as his work is done, and decides to (try to) leave after giving Sasuke his unconscious friend back.

Sasuke is too confused to retaliate, especially when he gets poked in the forehead again. Kisame finally makes it, and asks why they don't just take the Kyuubi with them. Itachi bulls***s something about his brother's happiness, and drags Kisame away. Hinata is somewhere by Naruto and Sasuke, confused as all h***. As this occurred in a rather distant training ground, backup only then arrives. The next day, they get the mission to Wave (wait, there's Haku...).

We'll have to figure out how to pull in some NagaKona eventually.

The four head off after meeting up with Tazuna, Sasuke determinedly defending his 'lover' against said drunkard's insults.

Baki, Gaara, Kankuro, Temari. Under the guise of coming early to the Chuunin exams, and wanting to establish stronger ties between the two villages, with them being 'the best choice of genin teams' due to being the Kazekage's kids.

It gets supremely awkward at one point when, after the Demon Brother's attack, Sasuke actually pulls him into 'glad you survived' kiss to 'show off' to Tazuna. Sakura, at the back of the group, blushes because, well, YAOI!

The two later double-team Zabuza with even greater effectiveness than in canon (after all, I doubt the Uchiha prodigy would let his best friend go on being as bad of a ninja as he was at the beginning of the original manga).

Naruto's meeting with Haku in the forest has the same ending as in canon, but Naruto doesn't care about his gender as much due to such a long-standing fake relationship with Sasuke somewhat desensitizing him to the idea of gender getting in the way of romance. He decides to keep pursuing Haku for the time being.

Training where Kakashi debates whether or not to tell the boys that Sakura knows it's all an act (on one hand, it amuses him, on the other, they find it tiring to do it for too long, and Sakura looks like she might get a nosebleed soon). Then magical transition to bridge scene. Naruto, despite being a competent ninja, manages to get in Haku's ice mirror thingy again. Zabuza's fight appears to be playing out much the

Haku falters when he sees Naruto, but things start playing out much the same way as canon. After the fake Sasuke-death, Naruto gets into a huge shout-fest and just makes Haku feel really uncomfortable, drawing the attention of Kakashi and Zabuza long enough to hold off on Zabuza's death to the point where Gato shows up.

Gato reveals his true plans to Zabuza (thinking he's going to win with his masses of henchmen... silly normalite!~), which makes the 'demon' go on a mass killing spree, assisted by Kakashi (who has nothing better to do at this point). Sakura decides to make herself useful and alert the boys to the new development, their fight having reached its own pause. As Haku prepares to join his mentor in battle, he tells Naruto that, no, he didn't really kill Sasuke, which returns the fox boy to his cheerful self, and the two ex-mist nin and the Konoha nin (except Sasuke, who's unconscious, and Sakura, who's making sure said unconscious boy and Tazuna don't somehow get caught up in the whole thing) bond over the blood and bodies of their enemies... the latter mostly being in Zabuza/ Haku's cases.

Inari shows up with the other villagers, but is stopped by Naruto and Sakura. Through some twist of events, HE starts crushing on Sakura too, but is too shy to do anything about it, given his age.

Zabuza decides the best thing for the country is for them to get a hidden village, and decides to train said brats personally (mostly because the locals will help defend him from hunter nin) since no one else can do it, with Haku taking care of diplomatic relations, particularly with Konoha (in future). Naruto decides the best thing for them is to come with the two to Konoha, not trusting the village and the lack of information it would give hunter nin to keep them safe forever. In the end, Zabuza chooses to...

Stay and establish a minor village in Wave, while sending Haku to Konoha to see if the Hokage can give any pointers on how to set one up. Inari is recruited as his first student in Wave. Naruto doesn't flirt with Haku on the way back to Konoha, preferring to confuse him with large amounts of gay subtext with Sasuke, which at one point becomes no-longer-subtext once the two kiss again, in exactly the same place where they did before to 'show off' to Tazuna after the Demon brothers. Sakura can't help but laugh, and blush, during the whole thing.

The five return to the village successfully, and life returns to usual, with Sakura slowly admitting to her closet yaoi fangirl, Haku sometimes being there and sometimes not (it's not like Wave's very far away, after all) and Sasuke and Naruto making all the fangirls either faint due to nosebleed or grind their teeth in jealousy, depending on which kind they are. And then, one day, they meet with a trio of strange students...!

One of whom has just grabbed Konohamaru. Kono still idolizes Naruto, despite thinking that he's a little weird for making perverted ninjutsu but liking Sasuke, and is apparently convinced that Naruto swings both ways (which is, in this story, completely true). Naruto decides that the best way to get Konohamaru out of Kankuro's grasp is to... temporarily seduce the puppet user. Temari watches in shock, and Gaara is just plain confused from his position upside-down on a tree. Sasuke intervenes at the point when he feels that Kankuro is as uncomfortable as he's going to get, and jumps down to 'intervene,' which basically consists of pretending to be hurt and talking to Naruto in a soft voice and them 'making up' without making out. Everyone is hysterically confused, barring Sakura, who is by this point more than used to their antics.

Gaara decides it's time to make his presence known. Naruto, having used the kyuubi's chakra more than in canon, feels a strange aura around Gaara via jinchuuriki senses. He decides he feels lonely, not knowing he's a fellow jinchuuriki, and decides to try and make friends with the red-headed boy after later sharing his thoughts with his best friend over Ramen.

Which is hilariously awkward, due to the fact that, while Naruto KNOWS how to act in a normal friendship, his position as friends with Sasuke and everything THAT entails has so thoroughly warped his views that half of his 'friendly outings' are actually more like dates. Gaara is so confused by what's going on that he actually goes to Temari or help, and she becomes convinced that Naruto is somehow trying to stage an affair with her brother.

She feels torn between encouraging her brother (having a friend will most likely have positive effects on his mental state, after all, and therefore leave him less likely to kill her, provided it doesn't backfire) and trying to keep him away from the boy (he's from Konoha, which they are planning to invade. The last thing they need is their secret weapon befriending the enemy). Ultimately, after rationalizing that they can isolate the boy if he becomes a problem and that improving her brother's mental state can only be a good thing, as less psycho Gaara means less casualties on their side, she decides to help out.

Gaara tries to be friends with Naruto, but notices the odd whispers going around, and that his friendship with Naruto involves a lot of things that he hasn't seen in other peoples' friendships. He goes back to Temari after someone mutters under their breath about homosexuality and SasuNaruSasu, and asks her what homosexuality means. She's mortified, but explains anyway, and advises him to directly ask Naruto about whether he intends to try to have a romantic or platonic relationship, if that's what the rumors are about. Then he asks about how sexual relations work between two boys. Temari facepalms, asks herself why she ever thought this might be a good idea, and proceeds to explain with increasing degrees of discomfort. On the upside, Gaara ACTUALLY thanks her and promises not to think about killing her until after the exams, unless Shukaku breaks free. That makes it worth it (as do the small smiles she occasionally sees on his face, but she's not telling anyone THAT).

After a little while, Naruto explains the whole thing with Sasuke to Gaara, just so he can laugh along with them (because Naruto thoroughly enjoys doing this to the fangirls). After all, this is only fangirl repellent, and the two having the psychotic sand user with them can only be beneficial to this goal.

Gaara aids them with his patented insane demon boy looks, and Naruto tells him that it'll confuse the fangirls most if he calls Gaara his new pet alligator. Why alligator? It has nothing to do with ANYTHING, and is a stupid pet to own to begin with; Gaara plays along by making a collar out of sand and wearing when he's around Naruto. Sakura decides that he is in need of petting. When Team 7 and their new friend sit down at Ichiraku, she sits right down next to Gaara and starts petting his head. Temari walks in on the scene, and is greatly confused.

She initially shows concern for Sakura, then stares at the sand collar, then decides to just take Naruto's advice, stop freaking out, and just buy a bowl of ramen and go with it. Later, after having the most confusing meal of her life (that Sakura girl clearly has feelings for the Uchiha, after all, but she's picking up vibes that Naruto likes both Sasuke and Gaara, with lingering fondness for Sakura... with returned feelings on what seems to be all ends. Love triangle that just got her brother of all people involved on one end, or something else?) she walks back to their hotel with Gaara. In the end, she just decides that that particular team is freaking insane and leaves it at that... for now.

Kankuro hears about what's going on, but doesn't really care very much. Then, after a month of people buzzing about the newest addition to the SasuNaru Harem (which they're convinced is real), the Chuunin Exams finally arrive. And with the Chuunin Exams comes all the Rookie teams plus Team Gai and the Suna siblings in one room. Temari finally meets Shikamaru, and Kankuro gets to talking with Shino as there is no one else there that looks like they aren't getting pulled into one giant love dodecahedron. The first exam passes without incident, but on the second one, Orochimaru and Kabuto get involved...

And are promptly given a strong recommendation to stay away via Gaara glaring at them. Because, of course, he would escort his friends through the forest of death. And, considering Naruto has that lovely chakra cloak, they can't really afford to approach as they would have in canon, as they'd face two Jinchuuriki as well as a Sharingan user if they did, even if they are all too weak to take them on alone (and then there's the other members of the team, since I'm sure Sasuke and Naruto would have decided to get Sakura to learn something that really contributes by then (genjutsu, medical skills, poison, etc.), Kankuro has his puppets, and Temari has her wind. Even if they're all genin, they can certainly put up a decent fight.)

They arrive at the tower safely and without complications, but find that some of the Ame genin saw the fight, name Kagari, Oboro, and Mubi, and followed them out. One of them, Oboro, tries to flirt with Temari, as she is both powerful and, in his opinion, less likely to kill him then the others. She just turns him away, claiming that she's got enough issues trying to keep up with the fifty or so love triangles that her brother got tangled up in.

Of course, that's not going to stop us from giving her Shikamaru.

They spend the next few days in the tower because of the freakishly small amount of time it took the Sand Siblings to bring Team 7 through the Forest of Death. During that time period, Anko has a nice, long talk to Sasuke about the curse seal that traumatizes him on a level of getting the talk from Jiraiya, and Kakashi has Naruto, Gaara, and Sakura sit in so they can understand just what the seal does, and can thoroughly beat Sasuke for his stupidity should he consider using it before a sealing master a chance to take a look at it.

That sealing master being... Jiraiya! He shows up and, in the process of messing with the seal, hears a few snippets of conversation that lead to him start questioning his godson's sexuality and also sanity (the latter of which has little do with the former). He demands that Kakashi explain everything, and calms down a smidgen when the 'prank' is explained. Of course, his fragile hold on... something is shattered when he sees Naruto kissing Sasuke (again), and Sakura watching with hearts in her eyes and a small nosebleed, as well as Gaara's look of slight jealousy (not necessarily of a romance, just human contact, but Jiraiya doesn't know that), and Temari and Kankuro trying to ignore them all. He resorts to Tsunade's method of calming down and fun: sake. In a slightly buzzed state, he admits to being the author of Icha Icha, which brings about the expected reactions... except for Sakura staying after everyone leaves, and, shy and embarrassed, asks if he's written any yaoi or shonen-ai. Which he...

Has not. He has written girl on girl, but never boy on boy. Sakura points out that his experience is lacking before leaving to watch more of her favorite show... I mean keep her team mates out of more trouble than they can help. Later, a drunk Jiraiya storms into the very confused Hokage's office and yells something about how this is why he should have been a more prominent influence in his godson's life.

Inside the room is Iruka, who was talking to the Hokage about the Exams and the Oro-sighting before Jiraiya showed up. He expresses his... disapproval of Jiraiya's actions and implied homophobia. Jiraiya isn't actually homophobic, though he's in no state of mind to tell Iruka that, as he has moved on from yelling to sobbing into his old teachers lap. He's just a rampant pervert who considers Naruto a grandson, even if he's technically just the godfather, and wants to see some great-grandkids, d***it!

Iruka accidentally lets it slip that there's at least one girl in Naruto's little harem, and Jiraiya frantically obtains the answer as to who. He then decides that, as soon as they get out of the forest of death, he's going to see what he can do for helping her training along (as well as finally helping out with Naruto's).

Which means that Jiraiya ends up tutoring Hinata for the Exams in addition to Naruto, though he somehow ropes Yamato/Tenzo into occasionally switching off with him.

At the tower, the first match is decided to be... Sakura against Shikamaru.

Poor Sakura. I mean, she's better than canon, but... it's Shikamaru. He can outsmart Jounin. He wins, hands down. Next?

The next match is Shino against Mubi (one of the rain genin).

Shino wins, but Mubi is supposedly good enough for it to be close.

Honestly, I think the Amenin during the Exams are a little underwhelming, or suffering from Worf effect. I mean, they have Nagato and Konan as village leaders, and their village is TINY compared to the five greats, and Ame is said to train its ninja individually and to create their own unique techniques. It stands to reason that they're probably a lot better than what Kishi showed.

Alright, then next match will be TenTen and Kagari (another of the Amenin. The last is Oboro, the team leader, for future reference).

He uses his sly mind technique to confuse her balance and sense of direction enough times that she runs out of balance. Then they get into a taijutsu battle, which TenTen wins due to being on Gai's team.

The next match is Temari versus Zaku.

Temari wins, definitely. Part of that is just that I don't really like Zaku. I mean, he's actually kind of cool, but Temari is just so much cooler.

The next match is Kabuto (they were offered the chance to quit last time because of the odd number, if I remember right. He woulddn't have had the chance this round because there's an even number of genin left.) against... oh, irony of ironies, Sasuke.

...Sasuke proceeds to woo him! *Cough* Okay, now really... I honestly think that Kabuto would win in an all out fight, but he's hiding his skills and needs to be in the audience with full chakra during the exams anyway, so he plays down his skill level enough to let Sasuke win.

…Even if I know he's faking, it still feels good. Alright, the next match up is Kankuro against Hinata. This should be interesting.

I know there's a lot of stories where he automatically loses against a Hyuuga... but I really think he's smarter than that, and would KNOW of a Hyuuga; he's the Kazekage's son, so he probably knows a lot about major, noble, important clans and the like. We'll say he takes her out with a mild poison from the puppet after she immediately goes for him instead of it.

I think he would lose against Neji, if only because Neji's faster. Hinata, on the other hand, he would be much more likely to beat. So, yeah, that's probably how it'd go.

True, but Neji is also known as a prodigy for a reason, and is only a year younger than Kankuro and just as confident, as opposed to Hinata's two years and very low confidence.

The main defining difference in this fight is still speed. Neji and Hinata would do the same thing to take Kankuro out; the difference in this case is that Neji is fast enough to pull it off, while Hinata... isn't.

(Note: After waking up and getting a mild, confidence boosting dose of therapy no jutsu from Naruto, Hinata resolves to train in poison immunity at her first chance.)

(Which leads her to have Anko as a spare sensei when neither Jiraiya nor Yamato are available. This introduces Anko to Yamato, and he takes a strange liking to the woman... which leads to the start of an ADULT Love Dodecahedron.)

Alright, let the next fight be a most youthful battle between Lee and Kin.

Oh... Lee can't fight genjutsu very well, but Kin seems to be very physically weak, so he'd probably win anyway.

That one was obvious, I have to admit. They both play on each other's weak points, but Kin's takes time to work effectively. So long as Lee took her out quickly, he wouldn't really have a problem.

Next, an epic clash between minor characters, Oboro and Misumi FIGHT!

Hm... Oboro. He's just better than Misumi. One of his genjutsu could mess up stretcher-boy for long enough to slip a kunai between his ribs.

Alright, the next match is going to be... well, that's familiar: Dosu against Choji (we already know how that turns out, so I'll just go on to the next one... unless you think something would've happened to screw things up enough by now that it would turn out differently. This really is a wonderful demonstration of the butterfly effect, after all. Early(ish) in the academy, the Uchiha prodigy decides he's sick of the fangirls constantly plaguing him and decides on a deal that will prove beneficial to both himself and the attention-starved dobe, and now Naruto is competent for reasons beyond stupid amounts of chakra, Sakura's making herself useful early, Hinata will soon receive training from Jiraiya, Yamato, and Anko, possibly Tsunade later for medical purposes (and can you see what jyuken plus chakra boosted strength is like? Because it looks pretty awesome in my opinion), Sasuke is much less likely to turn evil since Jiraiya got a good look at the curse seal and he has multiple people making sure he not only knows it's a bad idea, but doesn't forget it, and Gaara might just end up with enough therapy no jutsu doses by the time the exam ends to side with Konoha in the invasion. Oh, and Zabuza and Haku are still alive. We haven't used them in a while... um... wanna have Haku proctor for the final tournament for no reason beyond that we can?)

Well, rant on how a tiny change early on can lead to a big difference later, let's move onto the next fight: Ino versus... oh dear. Another auto-win: Gaara. If she even tried possessing him, Shukaku would try eating her alive.

Alright, finally a fight that I leave the details unto you for: Neji versus Yoroi.

...YES. Haku would be a great proctor. And would stop the fights cold (pun intended) with brutal precision if required.

As for the Butterfly effect: we pwned it. And don't forget the last reason that Sasuke CERTAINLY won't leave because of: Naruto.

That's actually a fun one to consider: Yoroi can absorb Neji's Jyuken blasts if he's fast enough to catch them. Yoroi would still lose, of course, but still.

We're just getting all bonuses with this little change. Of course, that means someone must be suffering off-screen as a result... oh, that's right! The fangirls!

Because Neji's a prodigy like that.

Alright, so, since the last fight's another familiar face (Naruto and Kiba), that means the outcome is ridiculously predictable. Unless we want to be unpredictable. At this point, Naruto is a competent shinobi, mostly because Sasuke is *not* going to have someone weak for a best friend, and would therefore work to patch the gaps in his friend's knowledge as best as he could early on. At the same time, Naruto's handicapped to an extent because Kiba's a friend, and he can't use kyuubi on a friend if it's not for therapy no jutsu purposes.

Therefore, since the effect will have changed Naruto up enough that this fight will go completely different, we come to a new decision: have Naruto win and be predictable, or have Naruto lose and be unpredictable. After all, if Naruto wins, he'll be in rivalry with his best friend, and the two will focus on separate studies to see who has grown stronger in their typical fashion (when not confusing fangirls). If not, then Naruto would help Sasuke in any way he could... which opens up a lot of possibilities.

1st match: Neji vs. Oboro (Neji wins, obviously. It's pretty useless being genjutsu specialized against a Hyuuga. Although, showing off something most Konoha ninja know about is hardly something worth making you Chunin material, so no promotion for either of them.)

2nd match: Shikamaru vs. Temari (I guess we know who's making Chunin again. Of course, Temari is close enough to our little butterfly that it might change things up a little, but she won't be in contact long enough for that to be influenced.)

3rd match: Dosu vs. Lee (Unless Dosu goes and does something stupid again (which he most likely will,) at which point he'll be substituted for Shino. Ah, well, Gaara might not be psycho enough to kill him this time... maybe.)

4th match: Kankuro vs. Naruto/ Kiba (depending on who wins the fight. I do find it ironic that either one will end up trying to avenge Hinata's defeat again, but...)

5th match: Sasuke and Gaara (and yet another friendly face... and the trigger to the start of the invasion. Meaning, no matter what, the next match won't happen.)

6th match: TenTen and Shino (provided Dosu doesn't do anything stupid. If he does and, by some miracle, the invasion *doesn't* happen, TenTen gets to fight herself, and we all know how that works out. But, since it most likely will, whatever happens with this one is a rather moot point, anyways.)

Fangirls don't count. They bring it on themselves.

Naruto wins, but in an original and completely ridiculous manner. Mostly because Jiraiya needs an excuse to pull Yamato out of ANBU and into Naruto's training.

Sakura, angry that she got beaten by Shikamaru, goes out to train in a forest, but stumbles upon Hinata instead, who is currently training in poison resistance with Anko.

Deciding that every medic nin needs to know their poisons, she decides to join in with their lessons.

Segment of a show I used to like: :/ www .youtube watch? v=Sgr7NgGON8I

It... kinda reminded me of Jade's situation in AKPCO.

And soon regrets that choice, but pushes through the pain and fear of being impaled anyway. Ino and TenTen stumble upon their little training a few days later.

...Wow. That was so... random. Maybe I'll do a shout out to the show when her brother shows up.

TenTen decides that poisons would be a nice thing to add to her already extensive range of ammunition, though Ino decides that, while being immune is definitely a bonus, actually using poisons wouldn't be that helpful to her (immobilizing an opponent so she can possess them is nice, but there's no use in possessing an immobilized opponent if she can't move either).

Instead, she convinces Anko to teach her about the OTHER kind of poisons... the ones used for interrogation. And more interrogation techniques. Then Jiraiya shows up to take over Hinata's training for the rest of the day, and finds the little gathering, most of whom are by that point bleeding. Behind him lurk Naruto and Yamato. Naruto greets most of the girls cheerily, barring Anko, since he finds her intimidating, while Yamato blushes as he goes up to talk to Anko and Jiraiya, as the former isn't wearing her coat. While the flesh-colored bodysuit below isn't TECHNICALLY revealing anything, it still hugs her body quite nicely. Anko isn't used to men wanting her for nonsexual reasons, and so doesn't realize that he actually has a crush on her.

Instead, she notes his attraction and decides to tease him later. Like when they're not around the man who calls himself (rightfully so) a super pervert. In the meantime, Jiraiya decides to teach Naruto toad summoning next, although he doesn't think it'd be right for Hinata. As such, he requests the other two work with her to find a summon that's right for the Hyuuga princess.

I don't think there are any suitable ones mentioned in canon... so they dig up an old ermine contract (I think that fits, right?) that's been gathering dust in the back of a room. Since Anko is back to working solely with Hinata, and Jiraiya's off with Naruto, that leaves Yamato to work with the other three girls: TenTen, Sakura, and Ino.

On the other side of the continent, Deidara feels a twinge of fear for some reason, and Itachi somehow realizes that it has to do with fangirls, having dealt with many in Konoha. He informs Deidara of this fact... and he remembers the girls from said village that somehow fell in love with his explosions, and thus him.

Yeah, ermines work.

Later, after the day's training is done, Anko catches Ino playing with explosive tags with TenTen watching. She's come up with several clever things to do with them, but is still trying to figure out how to make bigger booms.

Meanwhile, Sakura has managed to con Gai into helping her taijutsu, the con being needed since he was convinced that she needed to be taught by Kakashi, her actual teacher. How does she con him? A game of dice. (Just because I wanted to compare her a little more to Tsunade).

A week later, Jiraiya loses patience with Naruto and decides to get him to channel Kyuubi's chakra to get things done. Of course, since Naruto has done this multiple times, it's much easier to get him to do it this time. Meanwhile, Hinata has succeeded in summoning her ermines, and therefore has begun to train in using them. The main two she uses now though are Mira (female, white-furred. Genjutsu specialist, particularly in cloaking techniques) and Zero (male, white-furred, Mira's sibling. Specializes in ice-based jutsu). Haku promises to help her further when the exams are done (he's a proctor, after all), but Anko continues training her for now.

Sakura, on the other hand, is quickly becoming good at taijutsu, and is furthering her skill in medical works. Ino is keeping up at her 'independent studies' along with TenTen, although the latter is vaguely reconsidering letting Neji take her out on a date.

Sasuke proceeds as in canon, unaware of what is unfolding in the village under the watchful eyes of Jiraiya and Anko. Meanwhile, Yamato has realized that Anko still isn't taking him seriously, as she recently agreed to a date with... Iruka. Which is the true start of the Love Polygon among the adults.

Fortunately. Of the two scenes that haven't been finished, one just needs the edits you pointed out when I last showed you, the other is... about a third done. I'm going to write at least half the remainder of the other scene and finish the first today. Although... there's a slight problem because, since school really starts next week for me, I didn't have access to a school computer this week. Since neither of my home computers let me see my word count, I've been having to estimate, which means I'll most likely come up short in terms of length this week. Either way, it won't happen again, though.

He decides, against his better judgment, to go to someone who knows girls for advice. That someone is...

Kakashi, who is currently at the top of the mountain with Sasuke, teaching him Chidori. Kakashi agrees to help under the conditions that Yamato makes wood clones for Sasuke to use as targets and practice dummies.

A while later, Naruto gets his summons down to where he can start learning to use them in a combat situation. As such, Hinata rejoins him in training (between sessions with Anko, of course) so they can spar and such.

Which leads to "THERE'S A SQUIRREL IN MY PANTS!" in the middle of the training field, which brings in the rest of the available genin as well.

And then another while of her figuring out how to get him back to where he should be. All while horribly awkward situations occur constantly. And while Konoha tries to get her back. ... That sounds fun!~

One of the summons lectures Naruto on how they're not squirrels, and the result is Naruto being locked in a time dilation genjutsu thanks to Mira involving mass squirrel attacks. Of course, this freaks out the other genin as well, since they can still see Naruto squirming on the ground and yelling something about the horrid squirrels (which confuses Lee to no end, since... well, he likes squirrels).

Especially explodey ones.

*Cough* Okay, um... At this point, Gaara comes by, trying to find Naruto because he hasn't seen him very often in the past several weeks. Unfortunately, he comes right while Naruto is at the peak of his squirrel-induced panic attack.

At first, he doesn't know what to do. Then, someone explains to him that it was caused by a genjutsu induced by saying the wrong thing to a summon. Sighing, he decides to just break the genjutsu before Naruto is permanently traumatized by the ordeal (because having huge chakra reserves is useful like that).

At which point Naruto glomps him and... stays. For several hours. Flinching every time Hinata comes even close. So Gaara walks around Konoha, supposedly unperturbed, with a whiskered blonde latched onto his torso and head. He runs into Temari, Baki, and Kankuro, who have been looking for him after the siblings found a suspicious blood stain on the roof that used to be Dosu.

Temari stares for a moment, and then decides to (once again) dismiss it as the village's natural aura of insanity and ignore it. Kankuro doesn't stop staring. Baki tries to ignore it as well, but can't stop the occasional flashes of a wtf face. Kankuro, as his brain has finished rebooting, asks why the leaf genin is on his little brother. Gaara forms his sand collar and says something about being a pet alligator, while Naruto mutters something about the squirrels.

This whole thing spreads new rumors around the village, specifically about Naruto and Gaara, and draw Sasuke's attention once he returns to the village. He returns earlier than canon due to Kakashi having trained them more than in the original. Once he hears the rumors, he seeks out Naruto and picks a 'fight' in the middle of the village. It is filled with many tears and eventually filled with Sakura and Hinata as well. So we have a large group of preteens (Naruto, Gaara, Sasuke, Temari, Sakura, Hinata) that are all arguing (or just watching in terror/amusement, as with Temari, or just confused, as with Gaara) about a far too complicated love triangle that involves nonexistent relationships (like SasuNaru) and rumors without a base (NaruGaa) and melodramatic tendencies and a lot of fake tears.

Eventually, it ends in 'forgiveness', and the two 'lovers' run off to have their reunion. Sasuke feels he's had his revenge after hearing how traumatized Naruto ended up after the squirrel thing, and comforts the Jinchuuriki by promising to take care of any evil squirrels for him in future. Afterwards, the two just do regular stuff for the rest of the day, enjoying seeing each other again.

And then we get to the actual FIGHTS!

Hm... Neji wins his fight, obviously. I mean, Oboro is better than in canon (because we said so), but he's still a genjutsu specialist. I doubt he'll win against a Byakugan.

Shikamaru and Temari: as in canon. Because I NEVER feel like breaking up that fight. It's just too good.

Shino and Lee, because Dosu was a moron and got himself killed again. Lee wins, but there's a lot of pain as Shino's bugs mess with his already impaired chakra system. Both are unconscious by the end, though Lee only falls after the match is called. He wakes up in the hospital to find that his chakra has been fluctuating sporadically and there may be a chance that Shino's bugs accidentally did something that medics have tried to do before. (I doubt Lee had enough money for a large amount on doctor's visits,

Sasuke and Gaara goes a la canon, but with less hate and more friendly (ish, since these two are... yeah) bantering.

Of course, afterwards, it goes much differently. Since Sasuke wouldn't use an assassination technique on his (sorta) friend, and therefore Gaara doesn't freak out. But, since the first people to ever be nice to him live there and happen to like their village, he decides he wants to protect the insanity and that trying to destroy Konoha is not smart. Therefore, when he pulls up his sand cloak, he decides against killing the Konoha shinobi and starts dismantling the Oto shinobi. Of course, Baki tries to stop him after ordering Temari and Kankuro to assist their forces elsewhere, but he obviously doesn't succeed. Meanwhile, Naruto, pissed as hell at the Oto forces (and finally realizing what that feeling he got from Gaara was) pulls out his own kyuubi chakra and proceeds to thrash the enemy with Sasuke... feeling inadequate alongside the two cloaked jinchuuriki. Of course, that doesn't mean he doesn't try for himself, but he still feels somewhat redundant.

Naruto and Gaara manage to BEFRIEND THEIR BIJUU, mostly due to this story being so ridiculous already that it isn't even all that big of a deal for Shukaku to be sane and friendly on occasion and Kurama to agree out of... boredom. Then the two bijuu shoot a pair of bijuudama at the box holding the Sandaime and Orochimaru. They accidentally incinerate the box, the Sandaime's left leg and arm, both of the dead Hokage, and Orochimaru's disgustingly long tongue and his hair.

Compared to the one we're actually writing, this story's actually pretty sane.

Sakura, deciding to make herself useful, goes to tend Sarutobi with a genjutsu as some extra protection with Hinata keeping watch. Meanwhile, the three males tag team the wounded Orochimaru and succeed in chasing him off (with an epic moment on Sasuke's part in how he's not interested in what the snake Sannin has to offer).

...True, which is kind of sad.

WHOO! Okay, after the Chuunin Exam Fiasco is officially over and Gaara decides to act as a diplomat for several days since he's on good terms with Konoha, and Suna both lost in the invasion and is summarily terrified of him on the whole, Sarutobi puts his foot down and says that there's no longer even a chance of him being Hokage, as he is now missing two limbs. So unless Jiraiya wants to take him up on his offer, he better go hunt down Tsunade. He decides to take along Naruto, but Sasuke and Sakura demand to come along...

And Naruto begs on their behalf. So, with Kakashi's permission (it'll be an interesting experience, after all, and they might just get some serious, quality training in the process) and Jiraiya being guilted into submission, the two end up coming along. And then... Itachi arrives (this time without his blonde bomber teammate).

The impressive part is that it's that cracky WITHOUT losing a cohesive storyline. Writing crack is easy. Writing crack WELL is very, very hard.

But with his blue one. The fight comes close to canon, until Itachi asks about his little brother and how the love polygon is going. He claims that Konoha gossip is usually the most interesting, and eventually picks the information from Kakashi's brain during Tsukuyomi. Then, after they catch up to the group at the hotel... they accidentally walk into the room while Sakura is changing (and the boys are in the other room).

The two freeze, and Sakura screams, which, of course, causes all sorts of shades of awkward (as the boys (except Jiraiya, who isn't there at the time) both come out immediately and find the two nukenin).

The door is quickly slammed shut by Itachi, who counts to fifteen as he hears shuffling cloth and angry whispers, and then opens the door again, finding that the kids are all there and dressed this time.

Sasuke, taking the lead, asks why the hell he's there. Itachi responds by saying they're checking on the nine tails, and nothing more. Kisame, on the other hand, decides that, since they'd be up against three genin if they tried, and it'd be easier to nab him now and keep him isolated until they were ready than to let him grow and be capable to make full use of his powers. Itachi (sighing... on the inside) agrees, and the three realize they have a fight on their hands.

So Naruto goes Kyuubi, which draws Jiraiya back even faster, but then Sakura does some fast talking that suddenly leaves both nukenin very confused (like, a riddle, or a logic impossibility, like shouting "THIS STATEMENT IS FALSE" but more complicated. Or, you know, not). Then Sasuke starts questioning Itachi about what happened the last time they got in a fight, and demands that he be told. Unfortunately (for... someone), nobody actually takes the initiative to attack, with Naruto going so far as to turn off his cloak, and they just awkwardly stand around and talk for about a minute, at which point Jiraiya shows up and is just kind of confused, but brushes it aside as 'Yaoi-influence,' which is his way of blaming things on Sasuke and Naruto's fake relationship and Sakura's less than healthy new obsession.

They realize that, since they're using the excuse that they're checking on the nine tails now (and there's not much point in doing it twice. Naruto's... special, but not that much), Itachi really doesn't have a reason for being there a couple months ago. He results to making nonsensical excuses that would work on someone dumber because he's Itachi, but Sasuke knows him too well, Jiraiya knows too much about Akatsuki, and Sakura is just too smart for any of them to actually take any of them seriously. However, thanks to her medical training (which, despite stitching up people and performing what basically amounts to surgery multiple times on himself, Kakuzu does not have), Sakura comes to a realization: Itachi is sick. And, after testing her theory (AKA: immobilizing Kisame via genjutsu and Itachi via there being three other people in the room, one of them being the legendary Sannin, and running a diagnostic jutsu on Itachi), she discovers that he is very sick. As in fatally ill, should he not receive treatment, and definitely in severe pain, and probably has been in such condition for months (of course, this makes Sasuke's earlier loss from before he became a genin sting all the more, but said genin can't really bring himself to care about that at the moment.

"Wait, he's DYING?!"

"Itachi, we're partners." Kisame somehow broke out. "How could you not tell me this?"

"Wait, partners? So... who's on top, 'ttebayo?"

You know it would happen.

The scary thing is that it really would.

Sasuke asks Naruto if this is really the time for that, and Kisame yells at said jinchuuriki (who grins sheepishly) because apparently the genjutsu allows him to still talk. Then, Naruto decides that the best course of action would be to take the two nukenin prisoner. Since they aren't that far from town, they backtrack to drop off Kisame and leave with Itachi (because they'll be on the move for quite some time, and Itachi needs to be seen to by Tsunade no matter what. If just anyone could cure him, after all, he'd already have had it cured. As such, he'll be less likely to be freed by one of his comrades, since Kisame doesn't know where they're headed, and Itachi only knew the direction because he used his mind-reading trick to find out.)

You forgot about Gai... he shows up in the middle, remember? So he helps escort Kisame back to Konoha (not even realizing that he'd fought this same man only a short while earlier ...D***it, Gai).

Curious question: he's a nukenin. Why do they want him healed at all?

Because they intend to keep him as a long-term prisoner, and that doesn't tend to work out very well when said prisoner has a fatal disease. And because Sasuke has his honor, and doesn't like killing his brother if they're not both at full strength (which I consider a good sign). As for Sakura (who manipulated them all into going along with it, although she didn't voice her real reasons)... she thinks there's something missing from the whole thing, since she's smart like that, but she doesn't know *what*.

Got it. So they show up at the bar with Tsunade, and tell her that they have an interesting case, instead of talking about the whole Hokage situation. Then she gets to the hotel room (which she assures them she most certainly would not have done had Jiraiya been on his own), and see Itachi sitting there, wearing chakra-suppressing handcuffs, an explosive collar, manacles on his ankles, and absolutely no expression. One either side are Sasuke and Sakura, the first of whom is staring, unblinking, with a blank face, at his older brother, and the latter of whom is poring after a medical manual.

Tsunade, after sending Jiraiya a questioning look, looks over Itachi and decides that, while she can heal him, due to the stress he's put on his body (while it would be difficult to heal considering just how long it'd been in place, it's made infinitely more complicated by what he did in the meantime), she can't heal him in a freaking hotel room. She also brings up that she doubts Jiraiya bothered to track her down so she could heal a prisoner, which leads him to bring up the real reason for the trip.

Tsunade is... convinced by the genin. It helps that Shizune and TonTon are using puppy eyes, Jiraiya is trying to be at least somewhat polite (due to the fact that he knows any 'misbehavior' will invoke punishment via genin shonen-ai and yaoi fangirling/yaoi talk from Sakura), and Itachi is just... STARING for minutes on end with NO BLINKING.

Jiraiya announces that they'll be leaving in the morning... and that he's not taking the first watch shift (shifts being needed because they need to make sure Itachi doesn't try anything). Naruto decides to take the first shift instead, with Sasuke following immediately afterwards. After everyone else is asleep, he decides the best thing to do to pass the time is to bother Itachi.

With many, many stories of his and Sasuke's alleged extremely gay exploits. Sasuke wakes up at the tail end of one of the ones that actually happened, and continues with several of his own once Naruto goes to sleep. He spends the rest of his time on watch just staring at his brother, who stares back. Shizune wakes up to take the watch after that, and shivers a little at the waves of pure non-emotion that roll off of the pair. After her watch (which is filled with creepy), comes Sakura's turn. She... reads yaoi and shonen-ai fanfiction that Konoha's numerous yaoi-fangirls have written for SasuNaru, NaruSasu, NaruGaa, and more to Itachi. Out loud. For the entire shift. With a blush on her face. And frequent mentions of how she would like to join in, preferably in Naruto's place in the SasuNaru.

Tsunade is actually serious about keeping watch, and doesn't know about the team's exploits anyways (yet). Jiraiya, on the other hand, mopes about how his situation in life until the sun comes up. Needless to say, since the team has been enjoying doing this for a while, Itachi knows quite a bit more than he wants to about the whole situation.

Then morning comes, and they all set off for Konoha, and run into Deidara and Sasori on the way there. They all just stare uncomfortably at each other for a few minutes, and then Deidara grins and flies off, singing a little song about how Itachi got captured, and that's a pretty good consolation prize, even if it does mean that he doesn't get to kill the Weasel.

Sasori sighs, but ultimately goes along with Deidara, although he decides to let Pein know he found the Uchiha. A couple days later, the group arrives back at Konoha. Tsunade, after dealing with the immediate things, escorts Itachi to the hospital to treat his disease. During the time in which the two are alone, Itachi hints at there being more to the massacre than she knows, and Tsunade decides to take a closer look at said incident (after all, she needs to know about his position).

Kakuzu and Hidan show up to try to get Itachi and Kisame back. They are chased out by the rampant insanity of the village, as well as Naruto's 'pet alligator' and 'numerous lovers'.

(Quick question: there are multiple directions we could take the thing with Itachi. He's supposed to be spying on the akatsuki, but... honestly, did that ever help in canon? He'd do more good as a member of Konoha's own forces, and protecting his brother from Orochimaru is certainly useful. Hence why I've put him in a position where things can go either way, really... and who can resist the fluff that comes as a result?)

Sakura, in the meantime, succeeds in her goal of becoming Tsunade's apprentice. Sasuke... continues learning under Kakashi, who's recovered by now. Naruto, on the other hand, starts learning the rasengan, and realizes that there are some parts of it that could be useful for Hinata, and thus shows her the first two steps to learning the jutsu, albeit not how to finish forming the technique.

Hm... Prison for a month, and then slow reintegration into the forces after Danzo takes up residence in his cell (which will probably lead to more than a few fun conversations with Kisame, with both Itachi AND Danzo. After a while, the blue man gets bored enough that he takes up knitting.

Hinata finally works up the courage to ACTUALLY ask Naruto out during that training (since she was just a friend involved in the fake love mess 'til that point), but is distracted when she hears that Sasuke was kidnapped by a group of Oto-nin.

Because Itachi does like his partner, he probably would get him some things with which he could occupy his time.

Of course, things change for the better with one small detail: Itachi is in Konoha. After all, no matter what Chi-chan threw in his way, nothing would stop the ex-nukenin from crushing all the snake Sannin's attempts to get his hands on his little brother. And, considering there's Naruto to be dealt with as well... yeah.

Kisame is visited by Haku at one point. Haku is the one that teaches him to knit in the first place.

And with the defeat of the Sound Four, all of whom are taken prisoner, even Kimimaro once he shows up, Naruto decides to take up Jiraiya on his offer of a training trip. There is a tearful goodbye with Sasuke (with several kisses to set of fangirls and Sakura, who no longer really counts as a fangirl, just... a friend...), and thus the story ends.

And not a SINGLE pairing was resolved. Not even the ones among the adults, which begin to evolve past the small triangle that there already is when Naruto leaves. When Shippuden arrives, the polygons are even wider and wilder than before, involving more of Akatsuki, some of Oto, and even more foreign villages, including some Jinchuuriki. But we won't write that, will we?

No, we'll leave that up to whoever picks up the story.


	4. Are We There Yet?

Naruto yelled incomprehensibly as he fell out of the portal-thingy. It was worth noting that he fell flat on his face and got a mouth full of dirt for his trouble.

Everyone else landed perfectly.

D***s.

He blamed that Tobi guy for tripping him.

Naruto got up, spitting out dirt, and rubbing at his tongue. Ugh, that was disgusting. He glanced around, and then back at the portal as the last person, Jiraiya, came through. He waved goodbye to the kind of creepy but still kinda nice girl that had let them through, who waved back, emotionless. Then the portal closed up, and they all heard the man that was her captain and supposedly her creator/father (they hadn't really gotten any confirmation on that point) yelling at her to get back to work.

Tsunade sighed and cracked her back—Sakura took care of the wallop that Jiraiya got for taking a glance during the action—and muttered something to herself, rubbing her temples as she did so.

She sighed again and turned to the others. "Alright, much as I feel the need to be wary of some of you," a pointed glare was sent in the direction of Nagato, Konan, and Tobi, "I do trust Naruto and Jiraiya's judgment on such matters. Not on everything, but these two are _normally_ a good judge of character."

Tsunade turned and strode off to where she could see the village in the not-so-far-off distance, not even stopping to make sure that she could hear the footsteps of people following along behind her. She _could_, but she didn't exactly _check_.

It took about fifteen minutes to get to the gates, the guards trying to stop them, but stopping as one of Tsunade's strides turned into a stomp that left a crater several feet deep and several yards wide, with a flippant "It's complicated," thrown over her shoulder to explain the presence of more people than she had left with. They met even more people on the way to the Hokage Tower, but went unmolested as Tsunade's expression (and Yahiko's surprisingly unnerving grin) drove them away.

Shizune was grabbed on their way into the office, and Tsunade finally came around to stand behind her desk.

"Now," turning to the shinobi and that one other girl (what was her name again?), she fixed them all with a glare. "We obviously don't know the Uchiha's current position. Therefore Jiraiya, since he so kindly volunteered, will be investigating this until he figures it out. The rest of you will remain in the city, and will meet back at my office when I say so. Understood?" After receiving a general nod, she signed for one of her ANBU to appear. Not a second later, one did. "Escort our guests to a hotel room."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

o.o.o.o.o

Konan lay on a bed in the hotel room that she had taken, reveling in the silence before the boys, men, got back; she would be rooming with the girl from the other dimension, Orihime, for the time she was in Konoha. Nagato, Yahiko, and Tobi would be in a room of their own, and she could only hope that they didn't try to kill each other. Nagato could keep calm and detached when necessary, as attested by his constant dealings with the less stable members of Akatsuki. The other two were nowhere near as dependable in that respect.

Unfortunately, the time she took to revel in said silence was brutally destroyed by her thoughts, buzzing around in her head like a swarm of hornets.

The door creaked as Yahiko almost bounced his way in, followed by Nagato, who had a surprisingly irate expression on his face. Konan sat up, and then…

She just stared.

Several minutes passed as Yahiko realized that Konan had been looking at him without a word since he had arrived, and that Nagato had joined in halfway through. He slowed down in his somewhat frenetic movements around the room, and eventually sat down on the bod opposite of them.

"What?"

Konan's gaze finally left him, dropping to the floor in mild discomfort of her undeniably rude actions. To her credit, there was a very good reason for them. Nagato was the one that answered. "It is… surreal, to have you here."

Yahiko frowned. "You're being stuffy again. And it's _surreal_?" He snorted. "No _s***_. I didn't expect to come back to life, and you've obviously had issues because of my death. But after you're dead for a while, you learn to let things go. I had over a decade to loosen up in the Rukongai, and in there you either learn to go with the flow, or you're forced to."

Konan shifted a bit in place, eyes still on the ground, but her attention was grabbed again as she felt a weight settle down next to her. She looked up to find that Yahiko had settled himself in between her and Nagato. He slung an arm around both, hugging them close to him. "H***, you found me after I died, and by complete accident, too. Can't you just accept it and be _happy?_"

It was strange. Yahiko had always been outgoing in life (or… his first life?), but this was _different_. He was always just as focused, or more focused, on business or whatever was important as he was on goofing off. Now… he seemed almost hedonistic. He was trying to imagine the moment, and it… it…

Konan broke.

She was a trained kunoichi. She was over thirty years old. She was considered an angel by the people of Amegakure. She was the sole woman in Akatsuki. She was one of the few female S-ranks to exist.

And yet she broke.

Konan couldn't help the tears as she suddenly turned and wrapped her arms around Yahiko. She didn't bawl or sob; she was too dignified for that. But she was also a person that had finally come to terms with the fact that her long dead best friend (and ex-lover) had been returned to her.

"Don't you_ ever_ leave us again, you hear?" Her voice was a whisper, a hiss.

"Uh…"

Konan felt another pair of arms wrap around both her and Yahiko from the other end.

Nagato's hug came with silence, but the silence was one with weight.

"…Yeah, okay."

The door slammed open.

"Tobi found you!"

…

…

…

…D***it.

Nagato turned a glare on Tobi and slowly stood up. The Rinnegan was in full force.

"Tobi."

His voice was deceptively calm.

"I thought you knew to knock."

He took a step towards the lollipop mask.

"After all, you are certainly _old_ enough to know."

"Did Tobi do something wrong?"

Yahiko was the one to diffuse the situation. "Hey, you can teleport, right?"

There were several seconds of silence, and then Tobi seemed to realize that Yahiko had been speaking to him. "Oh! Yes, Tobi can teleport!"

"Can you go to Ame to get my body? 'Cause this gigai thing? Not cuttin' it."

"Uh, Tobi doesn't know if—"

Nagato turned his stare away from Yahiko in order to once more glare at Tobi. "Tobi. Trust me. You do not want to be here at the moment."

"Why?"

"Tobi, I want you gone."

"But—"

"Tobi!"

And then there weren't any more lollipops.

Konan pinched the bridge of her nose. So much for their dramatic moment.

o.o.o.o.o

Three weeks later, Tsunade rubbed her headache away, fighting the temptation to send for Shizune so she could get some sake.

The day after their arrival, the Ame-nin had sent the masked one back to retrieve their not-so-dead friend's body. With a warp of... something, he had vanished, reappearing a few moments later with the requested body.

To say it was far from any preferred condition was an understatement. While they had been incredibly precise with the placement of the black rods that had littered the corpse, some of them had been required to be placed in spots that would have left been fatal, had they been embedded in a living being. The gashes hadn't been easy to heal, either. At least they hadn't had to remove all the piercings. As Yahiko had deemed them 'cool,' he'd decided to keep a few of the non-damaging ones, on his lip, ears, and nose.

And that had only been her first headache. The day after, the council had nearly knocked down her door. She didn't blame them, of course. She'd decided to send their Jinchuuriki on a joint mission with one of the legendary Sannin, two S-ranked supposed nukenin (they were technically the legal rulers of Ame, but there was still Akatsuki to consider), a dead man, and a non-shinobi from another dimension. Most of the council members didn't approve. A lot of them still didn't.

It wasn't going to stop her, though.

And now Jiraiya had returned from his scouting mission. The team had already been notified. They were heading out tomorrow.

"Tsunade-sama." Looking up from her attempts to focus on paperwork, she was relatively unsurprised to find yet another headache standing in the door.

"What do you want, Danzo?"

"The Kyuubi boy is leaving on that joint mission with those others soon, correct?'

"Why am I not surprised you know about that? Answer the question."

"I want surveillance." At the Godaime's cocked eyebrow, he chose to continue. "We are leaving the Kyuubi with two S-ranked nukenin who are part of an organization whose goals are well known; that is, the capture of the Jinchuuriki and the extraction of their bijuu. This is hardly a secure operation."

"Congratulations. You've noticed the obvious."

Danzo glared at Tsunade. "This is serious, Hokage-sama. We need to fix this."

"And you've come up with a solution?"

"I have an idea..."

o.o.o.o.o

Orihime turned another corner, taking in the sights. This place was so beautiful! The sun was shining during the day, and there were just enough clouds to make it nice. The forests were lush and green, and the city had such a traditional style! It was like she was in a whole new world!

Wait... she was.

Taking another turn, she crossed a bridge and found herself on a side path. A few minutes later, a flash of fire in the corner of her eyes drew her attention to the fields along the side. Two shinobi were sparring. These must be the training fields, then.

Watching the two shinobi spar brought her mind back to exactly what she'd been attempting to forget: her teammates for the mission were no doubt packing their bags, getting ready to hunt down Uchiha-san and drag him home. But she wasn't a kunoichi. That much was certain. She couldn't use jutsu, or punch through things with enormous strength, or run so fast she could almost fly...

She was just... Orihime.

Shaking her head, almost as though to shake away the thoughts, she forced her thinking into a happier tone. It didn't matter. Not really. She was Orihime, and she had her own abilities she could use. And that was enough.

Seeing the two shinobi change to hand-to-hand (_taijutsu_, she thinks), she perked up, a smile stretching across her face again. She can't wait to tell Tatsuki-chan about this!

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto rushed up in front of the Hokage Tower, out of breath from the ridiculously fast run that had taken him from Ichiraku Ramen to the Tower door. There was also a large wet spot down the front of his shirt from where he'd spilt some ramen in his hurry to get there when the ANBU had informed him that the mission had finally come in.

Of course, much to his dismay, Sakura was waiting for him there at the gate, right in perfect view to see his disheveled state.

"Really, Naruto?"

Naruto sent her a look that was half glare, half pleading from his position leaning against the door and doubled over.

"I wanted… to get here… as fast as… I could." He gasped out, and after another minute, he finally stood straight.

"Come on, baka." Sakura sighed and lead the way up the steps. They got to the room, and found, with surprise, that they were the last to get there. Well, it wasn't that important of a detail. They weren't late by much, after all.

Looking around the office, Tsunade nodded to herself. "Now that we're all here..." Pulling a picture out of the folder, she dropped the image on her desk for those who were not a part of Team Seven. "This is your target, Uchiha Sasuke, at the time of his defection. While his appearance has undoubtedly changed, he should be recognizable. Your task is to find him and bring him home.

"Jiraiya has discovered the target's location, at a hidden base in the main part of Otogakure. However, by the time of your arrival, they'll have changed positions to a base near Kusa. Jiraiya knows its location, and will therefore be leading you there."

Naruto nodded, but flinched a little as Sakura suddenly gripped his arm with a rather large amount of force. "Sakura-chan."

"It's… we're finally going after him." She whispered. "It's been over two years since he left, and…"

Naruto smiled, but there was sadness in it, pointed and driving. "Yeah… wish we could take Kakashi-sensei."

Sakura snorted. "It's his own fault for accepting another challenge from Gai and getting hurt. I'm always the one that has to patch them up!"

Yahiko was bouncing on the balls of his feet, humming quietly, and turned to his old friends. "This is actually kind of exciting. I almost forgot what it was like to go on an actual mission!"

Orihime stood next to Konan, actually a little shy in the presence of all these people who had been trained since a ridiculously young age to do something she didn't much like: kill. But they were going to go and save a friend, and she had been in battles before, so it should be alright. Right?

…Right.

Konan must have noticed how nervous she was, because she turned her head and patted Orihime on the shoulder. "You'll be fine. You said you could make barriers and heal people, right? All you have to do is stay in the back as a reserve in case someone gets hurt. The Haruno girl may get involved in the fighting, but she's also far more trained in avoiding attacks so that she can both fight and heal."

Orihime relaxed a little. She didn't quite understand why, but the kunoichi's words had calmed her down somewhat.

"Another thing," Tsunade spoke again, drawing their attention back to her. "There's been a slight… complication."

o.o.o.o.o

"So, are you the team I was told I would be working with?" Naruto... didn't quite know what to think of this guy. His skin was pale enough for him to not have seen sunlight in ages, and while he wouldn't stop smiling, it was just weird.

"My name is Sai." The boy said, closing his book. "I hope we can work well together."

After a moment of silence, Orihime nodded to him, smiling back. "I hope we can work together, too, Sai-san!" After examining him for a moment, she tilted her head. "You're so pale… would you like some food? It might make you feel better." Yahiko quickly moved behind the girl and made a frantic 'don't-do-it' gesture.

Sai, blinking for a moment but quickly recovering, shook his head, fake smile still in place. "I already ate, but thank you for the offer, Inoue-san."

"Alright," Yahiko nodded, grinning. "Now that yet another lunatic has joined the party, let's head out. We have an idiot to catch."

o.o.o.o.o

It was so quiet and peaceful in the woods, so calm and free. Orihime giggled and started telling little stories about rabbits or something to Sakura, a dreamy tone in her voice.

It put the shinobi on edge. A mission _never_ went as planned if it was above a C-rank. Trouble _always_ showed up.

"Orihime!"

…And there was trouble. They'd been wondering where it was.

Two boys blasted in through the trees. One was wearing a black shihakusho, and the other was wearing white clothing adorned with a strange cross.

"Kurosaki-kun? Ishida-san?"

Naruto wasted no time in attacking, though within seconds, Sakura had realized that attacking whoever these boys were was not a good idea. Orihime seemed to know them. Know them and like them, be a friend, apparently. Their attacks didn't seem very powerful… and they seemed to realize this, as the one with the orange hair had suddenly shouted to the tall, thin one to fall back for a moment because something called a Getsuga Tensho wasn't working. Sakura didn't really know what that would mean, or why someone swinging a sword that large around was claiming to have trouble with an attack when he'd just accidentally cleaved a tree in half while trying to attack Naruto, but she didn't really care either.

"Kurosaki-kun! Ishida-san! Stop!" Orihime's shouts drew the fight to a halt. The girl had a hand up to her chest, clenched in a fist in slight panic, as if trying to squeeze her heart still.

Naruto looked back at the others, noticing that people seemed to be irritated at him for some reason. "What?"

The deadpan looks he received in response were not enlightening.

"Orihime? What the h*** is going on? We thought you were kidnapped!"

Orihime's head tilted to the side. "But I came with them because I wanted to see the magic ninjas."

…

The next portion conversation, concerning how Ichigo and Uryuu are convinced of the shinobi's innocence in the matter, has been deleted for your benefit. No, really. Don't ask. It isn't worth it. It really, _really_ isn't worth it.

"Well, then I suppose we should come along. For Orihime's benefit." Ishida adjusted his glasses.

"That may not be a good idea." Konan said. "Your powers don't seem to work in the same way here. Had you had time to practice your powers the way Orihime had, you may have been a boon. As it stands, you likely won't be able to utilize your powers in the same manner as you normally would."

Ichigo glared at Ishida for a second, and then smirked and hefted his sword on his shoulder. "Well, I can still use my sword. Maybe I won't be able to use my better attacks, but I won't be _useless_."

Ishida rolled his eyes. "All I would need is a bow, some arrows, and a quiver, and if we are really in a world of ninja as they say, then that shouldn't be overly difficult. My ability to use advanced Quincy attacks will be nullified, but I can use normal archery just as easily as the spiritual kind."

The two glared at each other.

Naruto knew they were only a few minutes from the village. He knew he had toads fast enough. And he knew someone that would have just about every kind of weapon they needed.

"What kind of bow do you use?"

o.o.o.o.o

TenTen blinked as a large toad hopped up in front of her. "Hey, you're TenTen, from Team Gai, right?"

"Ano… yes?"

"Great, I need something called a composite bow or something. The note's here in the bag. All the stuff that comes with it too, that would be nice."

TenTen blinked again. She slowly complied with the request, adding in two full scrolls of arrows. The request was obviously coming from either Naruto or Jiraiya. In the case of the former, she didn't want to get involved (his missions had a tendency to go pear-shaped), and in the case of the latter, she _really_ didn't want to get involved (because it was either perverted or involved in S-rank business, neither of which she wanted to know about). This was the second weapon that had been requested by them in as many weeks, the first being a sword for the man with the odd piercings that had stopped by her father's shop with the Sannin.

She watched the toad leave, confused as all h***.

o.o.o.o.o

Ishida blinked as the toad, which was the size of a children's wagon or particularly large dog, came back with some scrolls in its mouth.

Well. That was interesting.

o.o.o.o.o

Jiraiya knew that more firepower was always a good thing. He didn't need to ask why the two kids from the other dimension were coming along. He honestly understood.

What he _didn't_ understand was why it only took five minutes for the carrot top to get into an argument with Naruto about who was stronger!

And then they switched to the voices in their heads. Joy.

o.o.o.o.o

They'd been walking for hours.

With this, Nagato could remember the old days, back before they received shinobi training. He supposed this was the problem with having three members on the team who couldn't run at high speeds for hours on end (or maybe just two, because Kurosaki seemed irritated about the slow speed as well for some reason), but… hopefully, their power would make it worth it. Or at least, it had better.

Jiraiya, who'd been walking at the back of the group for the last hour, suddenly clamped his hands on his living students' shoulders, freezing them in place. After adjusting his grip so he had an arm around each of their shoulders (and slipping a few meters behind the rest as he did), Jiraiya cleared his throat. "It's about time we had a little talk."

o.o.o.o.o

"You have one, too?"

"It's just so... annoying!"

Sai, taking up the Sannin's position as the old man (or at least, old in comparison to everyone else in the group) began speaking with his students, observed the rest of the group. Kurosaki-san and Naruto-san, who had finally stopped their argument over who was stronger, had instead been drawn into a conversation on their respective inner voices, Naruto-san complaining about the Kyuubi and Kurosaki-san saying something about an... inner hollow? Whatever that was, it seemed unpleasant.

Yahiko-san, on the other hand, was relaxing while listening to Sakura-san and Orihime-san talk about… who liked who? Sakura-san seemed to have drawn Orihime-san into a discussion on the relationship between the Nara clan heir and a Suna kunoichi (the Kazekage's sister, if he heard correctly) while trying to avoid talking about her own love life.

Ishida-san, on the other hand, was looking irritated at being ignored by Kuro-no, wait. He'd just baited Kurosaki-san into an argument on overcompensation jokes. Naruto-san appeared to be ready to join in.

Sai nodded to himself before speaking up after Naruto-san's contribution. It was time to enter the fray.

o.o.o.o.o

Jiraiya's hand came up, and near instinctively the shinobi all stopped and readied their stances, low ones, nearly crouching. The civilian healer, Quincy, and half-dead boy followed suit after actually noticing.

Jiraiya nodded, to the others, and they readied the plan. Konan's form shifted, and origami butterflies filled the air, flapping in just the right way so that they couldn't be discerned as paper. Yahiko unsheathed his new sword, motioning for the extra-dimensional interlopers to ready their own weapons in turn. Nagato did nothing to prepare, but his mind was racing to remember every attack Orochimaru had mentioned while still under his command in Akatsuki. Sakura, Naruto, and Jiraiya crept forward, spearheading the attack that would bring their quarry from the underground bunker.

Jiraiya and Naruto bit their thumbs, flashed through several hand signs, and held the second to last, waiting for the pinpoint of the strategy to get the prey out into the open.

Sakura reared back and smashed a fist into the ground.

And then there was a crater.

o.o.o.o.o

A/N- And here's my second contribution. Thanks to Phoenix for wrapping this up for me; I've been having a really rough couple weeks.

**Phoenix's Notes: Actually, I'm fairly certain I wrote over half the chapter, and edited the rest due to compatibility issues. But I'm also ridiculously fast when it comes to fanfiction, and Dark-heika really **_**has**_ **been having that bad of a week. I hope you enjoyed it!**

**Also, there's a poll up on my profile. Dark-heika and I discussed it, and we're not quite sure about this: do you want us to use a version of Deidara inspired by my other story, Gender Confusion? Not the plot (or Jiraiya would be missing an arm by now), but the basic personalities, relationships, and powers (sort of: just Deidara's two favorite transformations, really). The main reason being that D-h thinks that Deidara and Hidan's actions and relationship there are extremely cute, so we need to know before more of Akatsuki gets introduced. Go vote!**

Untold Tales

Note: This one was… kind of scattered throughout the thread, meaning there was never really a cohesive storyline until we tossed Sakura in. As such, all the events listed before the thing with Sakura can be done at any place, any time. Likewise, feel free to add as many events as you like. If you haven't already, I'd recommend reading 8-Bit Theater before starting the epic quest that will result from writing this one.

-Kakuzu gains 8-bit theater **Thief** powers. Meaning, he can steal anything that isn't BOTH on fire and nailed down. This includes metaphorical concepts, like secrets. And your soul (**Note from Phoenix: based off of a canon event in Eight-Bit Theater, where the character, aptly named Thief, actually does steal a soul**).

-Either Kakuzu or (later on) Sakura must steal the following objects:

-someone's soul

-someone's clothes (underwear included)

-someone's clothes (underwear not included)

-a plane. Twice.

-TARDIS

-Dinosaur eggs using TARDIS

-a mansion

-Hokage tower

-The Eiffel Tower

-Hidan's testicles (which appear on the blackmarket with the eggs... don't ask) (**Note from Phoenix: Look up **_**Girl's Next Best Friend**_**, a strip of ****Manala Next Door****, a webcomic by Humon. It will explain everything. Kakuzu knows that Hidan has enough of a healing factor to grow them back… again and again and again and again…**)

-the moon (**Inspired by Despicable Me**)

-Wyoming (**Inspired by the fact that it's the richest state in the US**)

-Monopoly money

-the real life versions of the things in Monopoly

-Alice from Twilight (**She's to aid Kakuzu with the TARDIS… yeah, that's what leads to the dinosaur eggs and the tomb raiding**)

-several history books

-everything from Egyptian tombs

-The deed to a platinum mine

-Itachi must steal everything from Kakuzu, then both nail it down and set it on fire so he can't get it back (**It won't work, because the fire ends eventually. You can't nail down ashes.**)

-Deidara and Hidan must use one of Kakuzu's planes for extreme leaf pile diving (because Deidara's birds just aren't fast enough)

-Nagato, worried for the fate of the universe, tries to figure out a way to nail down the sun.

-Konan talks him out of it, and then takes him to Sasori for a lesson on astronomy and physics, and why that would be a DEVASTATINGLY bad idea.

-Then Kakuzu rejoices, because the sun is fire, and it's NOT going to be nailed down. Ergo, it can still be stolen!

-Sakura becomes a kleptomaniac, and her first action on seeing Kakuzu is to pick his pockets and grab his briefcase while he's distracted. He steals everything except the clothes on her back (the bottom layers, at least. After all, that skirt could sell for something, even if the shorts need to stay on so that he isn't called a pedophile) simultaneously with her theft.

-Later on, she comes back and expresses wishes to learn from him (able to steal anything not nailed down and on fire).

-He warns her that she'll be considered a missingnin. She said that if she learns from him, she can just steal back her honor and prestige.

-Seeing the logic, he decides he can get along with his new apprentice (for now at least) and agrees. But, because nothing is ever free with Kakuzu, everything she steals during her time as his apprentice belongs to him, and, after he teaches her his trade, she is forbidden from stealing from him.

-Anyways, he decides that, as a final test of whether or not she's worthy of being his apprentice, she has to steal a large amount of money from Konoha.

-She gets it from the Uchiha compound, in a cruel twist of fate. Just to be on the safe side, though, she grabs a couple of Jounin's wallets along the way.

-Pleased with his apprentice's offerings, he accepts, and takes his new minion with him as he continues on with his new mission to collect a bounty (she caught him when he was on his way to collecting his latest pay) before returning to base.

-The next day, Tsunade is greatly confused when _her_ apprentice doesn't show or call in sick or anything.

-Then she (Sakura) finds Sasori at the base and teases him endlessly about how she was half the reason he 'died' (we decided he would just be 'killed' and brought back in his regular teenage form for no reason other than something to do with fangirls using it as a common tactic). Then she questions him about how he was adjusting to life as a human being again... as well as uncomfortable topics that only a medic or unashamed pervert can ask about without blushing madly.

-Then Kakashi and Naruto show up in Konoha.

-Naruto immediately begins scouring Konoha for his friend/ crush, while Kakashi begins asking around. Said Jounin discovers that many of his friends discovered their wallets to be missing, and begins to suspect... something. He just doesn't know what yet.

-They get Neji and Team Eight to help (barring Kurenai, who is heavily pregnant), and find out about the missing Uchiha funds, and the place where Sakura and Kakuzu apparently met up

-The Sakura retrieval team (lead by Kakashi) find the place, and are puzzled to find that she obviously met with someone. Neji points out the obvious, that this all makes her seem incredibly suspicious, but Naruto has too much faith in his friends as usual and believes her to be kidnapped (might as well parody the previously mentioned fics, right?)

-Might as well. Even after they catch up, and Sakura cheerily informs them that she'll come right back after she learns how to steal everything from their souls to their shoes to their dignity to their alcohol tolerance to their sense of smell to the Hokage Tower, Naruto still believes that she has been kidnapped, and, due to the fact that she seems inordinately happy, also brainwashed.

-Sakura then takes the time to carefully explain (using the smallest words possible) just why it's impossible to brainwash someone. She's just taking lessons from a known murderer/thief!

(The concept of stealing their trust is amusing, though. And… stealing their alcohol tolerance? If you think about that, the possibilities are endless... she could also be the greatest infiltrator ever, just by stealing the thoughts and memories of her existence/the possibility of her being an infiltrator as her subject thinks of it. Not to mention she could win any fight instantly, as she could steal her opponent's fighting capabilities... great, now I want that kind of power.)

-And explains that most ninja are, as per the job description, known murderers and thieves. Then Kakuzu steals their memories of the incident and there state of consciousness, leaving behind a note that they better pay him if they want their memories back.

-After moving them far away from the hideout, of course. He's not an idiot.

Anyways, Sakura is then put to her next task: stealing someone's life without killing them (the ultimate assassination technique).

-Sakura fails miserably, but that is due to the fact that stealing a life is exceedingly difficult and Kakuzu wasn't expecting her to come anywhere close to succeeding. However, she does find out that she is somewhat more skilled at stealing people's HEALTH than anything else: she finds a way to make herself immortal.

-So, after that interesting bit, she begins working with the simpler things. Like stealing the clothes off someone's back (as well as large amounts of general training).

-At one point, she begs Sasori to teach her how to use puppets, or at least better methods of creating poisons. He refuses, but she steals all the puppets he's remade since the destruction of his old set and holds them hostage until Kakuzu comes by and tell Sasori to just agree and make her stop whining.

-Eventually, Sasori does give in. Meaning Sakura starts learning how to use poisons/chakra strings.

-Then, at one point, she notices that he looks pale and clammy. As it turns out, his immune system isn't up to snuff because of his many years stuck as a puppet.

-After running a diagnostic to find out exactly what's wrong, since it's not severe, she decides ordering bed rest for him is best.

-And promises, with a terrifyingly sweet smile, to enforce that advice if necessary. Sasori agrees out of partial disgust (he wants her gone from his room), partial respect (the fight, and she's a medic that worked under TSUNADE), and partial fondness (as he has worked with her for several weeks by this point), though he doesn't realize that last one. Sakura leaves...

And starts asking Itachi to help her with genjutsu.

-Itachi attempts to ignore her, but Sakura finds it's easy to steal pocky from the man. Add that to good timing and holding said sweet hostage, and...

-He decides to teach through example. He may be a nice guy and a pacifist deep down inside, but she took the pocky! Ergo, Sakura finds herself spending the next few days not knowing what is real and what isn't.

-Sakura, for future reference, declares the pocky forbidden territory. On the bright side, she does get much better about knowing when illusions are in play. In the end, Kakuzu requests Itachi allow his student to take a break because it's time for them to go out on a mission again, this time collecting a bounty in Fire Country.

-They run into Team Ten, but Sakura manages to convince him not to try and take Asuma's head. This, of course, leaves her friends in the throes of confusion, as she cheerily skips off after Kakuzu. Ino notes that Sakura somehow seems happier than she was in Konoha, and then they all turn to leave... only to notice that they have nothing on their person other than their underclothes. Ino in particular blushes and dives behind a convenient nearby tree.

-Later on, Asuma reports what they saw to Tsunade, confirming once and for all that, yes, Sakura has really gone rogue, and yes, she is currently apprenticed under a member of the Akatsuki (Tsunade knew she should have had that kleptomania treated when she had the chance).

-People are especially concerned by the rumors of various objects, supposedly mundane, disappearing around their houses at the most inopportune times. Then, they find Sasuke outside the doors one day, with a head full of amnesia. He says that all he remembers from after the massacre (which is the point at which his memory disappears) is a crying pink-haired girl saying that she was sorry, but she had to steal his memories, and then leaving; then he saw the village in the distance and came back. The Yamanaka confirm it, and the scroll that Sasuke carries with him is apparently filled with the still-living bodies of his Hebi team (Karin, Suigetsu, and Juugo).

-Naruto is amazed, and Tsunade decides that Sakura isn't a lost cause (yet) after all. As such, roles have been reversed; Sasuke is now back in Konoha and is learning from Kakashi to help bring back the skills he forgot he had, and Sakura is the one Team Seven needs to recover (and, by extension, will continue roaming as a nukenin until she decides to come back... or has her memory wiped and is deposited back at said village, but that's not likely).

-The difference being that Sakura happily promised to come back as soon as she learned to be a true Thief, whereas Sasuke just outright defected. Sakura's is more like an extended training trip, or a long vacation, on which she just so happens to be fraternizing with the enemy.

When Sakura and Kakuzu get back to the base, she sets about on her next task: repeatedly vivisecting Hidan again to figure out his immortality.

-after performing many a vivisection on Hidan, Sakura gains a much better idea of the human anatomy than she would have without the live test subject. So, her next task (unless the vivisection is a punishment) that she sets for herself is to figure out how to disable opponents effectively using her medical knowledge to her advantage, and just generally practicing crossing her mad strength with the precision in medical practices. Later on, after returning to the base (and selling the clothes and materials stolen from the Konoha shinobi; might as well make a profit off it), While Itachi is on a mission with Kisame, Sakura instead meets with Deidara and Tobi (both trying to 'help' Sasori, each in their own way).

-Sakura tries to tease Sasori again, but finds her way being blocked by two supposedly angry nukenin. She manages to get them off-balance by grabbing Deidara's arm, looking over the damage to his elbow, and then ordering him to come to the infirmary so she can fix it. Tobi comes along too, and hears Sakura mention how fun it's going to be once Kakuzu teaches her how to steal people's secrets. He starts to worry…

-And decides to just convince her not to steal his secrets by convincing her he doesn't have any. If that fails, he'll just try to kill her in her sleep. Key word being _try_.

-Sakura sleeps like Akane and Ranma, that being that she fights imaginary enemies in her sleep, and sometimes unconsciously uses her chakra enhancement. So she beats up Tobi without even realizing whenever he tries to kill her. He's just convinced that she's super paranoid.

-The next day, Sakura's back to her illusion training. Since she brought his brother back to Konoha, Itachi's feeling much more merciful this round, and therefore doesn't make her quite as… disorientated as before. Instead, he has her practicing making illusions, as well as recognizing them (with their expendable test dummy, of course).

-Who is, as always, Hidan. Soon after, Kisame and Itachi are sent out on a mission, as are Kakuzu and Hidan, and she can't come. Which means she's left with the artists, the bosses, the cannibal, and... Tobi.

-Sasori is busy, meaning Sakura is bored (she knows better than to interrupt Konan and Leader, after all). Later in the day, she sees Tobi bothering Deidara, and uses her (limited, but usable) capabilities with chakra strings to throw said annoyance at Zetsu. Deidara, seeing her act of kindness, decides to reward her by 1- get her out of Zetsu's line of fire (and throwing Tobi under the bus as a result), and 2- …showing her his art. Because who wouldn't be entertained by massive explosions?

-She begs him to take her flying, because she wants to get high up and see what it's like. He acquiesces, but Konan catches them because both are whooping like the teenagers they are as Dei does rolls and loops and things.

-Konan and Deidara are engaged in a battle of wills, which Konan wins because 1- she puts up with Nagato, and used to put up with Yahiko, she has no doubt learned the art of winning epic stare downs, and 2- she outranks him. Therefore, Deidara is forced to stop… only for him to drag Sakura out to do something in town, because he's bored like that and he's decided she's his plaything for the day.

-Sakura, at the same time, decides that he's her plaything as well. When Kakuzu returns to the base, it's to find that Deidara and Sakura managed to clean out three nearby casinos, just through poker. He actually hugs her in a doting manner, which makes her giggle and smile happily. Then he pats Deidara on the head absentmindedly as he leaves the room. Everyone present is confused barring Sakura (obviously), and Hidan (who saw enough weird mood swings from Kakuzu, both when Sakura was around and not, that this isn't too weird for him).

-The next day, Hidan and Deidara make a decision: it's time to get drunk. Of course, they drag Sakura into it, as it soon escalates to include most of the Akatsuki (Itachi, Leader, and Konan being the notable exceptions). During said time, the team ends up telling stories. Sakura somehow jumps to telling about her time in the Forest of Death, when she resolved to be a competent shinobi. This leads to Konan (who's keeping an eye on the rest of them, as it's her turn apparently) deciding that they're going to have a girl's day the next day.

-Drunk Tobi accidentally activates his intangibility during that episode, and spends most of his time panicking about not being able to touch anything... On the girl's day out, Konan takes Sakura to an onsen, and there they run into Temari. Konan isn't wearing her Akatsuki cloak, but Temari's heard about Sakura's... _vacation_ from Gaara, who was told by Tsunade in case the pinkette passed by Suna

-Temari is surprised to see Sakura there, and is automatically suspicious. Said pink-haired kunoichi lies and says they were just stopping there for some relaxation on their way through (discretely stealing quite a bit of money from the unsuspecting woman, and tries to steal her disbelief while she's at it).

-She fails at stealing the disbelief, but does manage to steal her clothing, and later her memories. She leaves only the Tessen. She later ruminates on the fact that she's extraordinarily good at stealing memories, but has a lot of trouble at stealing anything else that isn't real.

-After selling the materials (again), Sakura and Konan enjoy the rest of their day before heading back. Later that night, Temari is found by Kankuro, who recognizes that thieving ability.

-Suna tries to get involved, but soon realizes that Sakura, despite consorting with missingnin, is, at most, just stealing things. She hasn't even killed anyone, and got Sasuke, a missingnin (Karin), a voluntary test subject (Juugo), and a kidnapped test subject (Suigetsu) to Konoha without harming a single one of them and even fixing a few latent issues like Sasuke's recent insanity. She'll probably be put on D-ranks and probation when she gets back, but not jail, they decide. Kankuro does, however, spend several weeks teasing Temari about being left somewhere with nothing but the clothes on her back and her war fan (which came in handy against perverts who tried to take advantage of her half-dressed state).

-The next day is spent working on her skills with Kakuzu, though later on she ends up working with Itachi. However, during her genjutsu lessons, she notices something seems wrong with him...

-The illness? Alright. Sakura immediately goes to Konan after her class is over and brings the issue up with her. She then takes her to Pein. He tells her to give it her best shot and that she has free reign so long as Konan is there to make sure she doesn't go overboard. Itachi wakes up one morning to find himself strapped to a table. In the room are Konan with a vaguely disinterested look in her cloak (normal), and Sakura in a sexy nurse outfit stolen from Zetsu's cosplay closet (NOT NORMAL! NOT NORMAL!).

-Konan asks Sakura if the nurse outfit was really necessary, which Sakura replies that it was. After examining Itachi (and calling in Hidan for an expendable test dummy to help with the progress... and because, no matter what Hidan says, vivisecting him is fun), and just generally abusing the fact that the Akatsuki's definition of overboard is very different from that of a normal person's, she figures out what's wrong with Itachi. (She figured that out ten minutes in; she wasn't apprentice to the slug Sannin/greatest medic nin ever for nothing. She just wanted to have fun while doing it. Because, really, when would she get the chance to play psychotic nurse to someone other than Hidan again?)

-She steals all the bacteria and dumps them into an expendable basin, which she orders burned. Then she sets to healing Itachi's lungs, completely ignoring Hidan, who is on a nearby table, pretty much looking like he's undergoing an autopsy, despite being alive. I say autopsy, because that is the exact pattern in which he's been cut open. He's also yelling obscenities at her, but she then detaches his jaw and sets it to the side. After he continues to yell, albeit nonsensically, she also removes his vocal cords. At that point, she realizes that nothing can make him shut up, and just puts his head in a box. Konan's expression barely changes.

-And so the entire day is spent. Of course, she keeps a sample of the disease to use it to infect Hidan and vivisect him at a later time so as to study the effects of the disease, but... (she'd bribe him into silence on the matter with that it's another way of inflicting pain on his victims). Later in the day, Sakura gets caught returning the nurse cosplay outfit to Zetsu. At first, she's worried he'll be mad (it's covered in blood, after all)... but then he says he likes it with the new additions, and pats her on the head before escorting her from his room.

-She decides to spend the next day bugging Tobi. Of course, bugging Tobi is next to impossible. They grab Itachi (still a little woozy from the healing, and thus far more agreeable than normal), and go to a candy shop. And then another. And another.

-When they get back, Itachi has a ridiculous amount of pocky, Sakura immediately sneaks off to hide her new stash before Kakuzu finds out, and Tobi is enjoying a lollipop that greatly resembles his mask. Oh, and a lot of the money for said stashes came out of Itachi and Tobi's funds, mostly because Sakura's are basically nonexistent at the moment.

-Except for the secret stuff that Sakura purchased on the sly with money she picked off of a few unaware Kumonin, one of whom was a Jounin. Hey, if they were going to be THAT inattentive...

-And the stuff she just stole. She's a thief's apprentice for a reason.

-True. The day after that, she decides to bother the artists. So she starts a fight between them, waits until they're really going at it (non-sexually, of course), and then poses the question of whether Konan's origami is art. While said kunoichi is only a few feet away. And neither artist realizes.

-As origami is not made with eternity in mind (although it can last forever under the right circumstances), Sasori believes it to be a lesser form of art. Deidara, on the other hand, says that while origami is not art, Konan can make it artful due to her ability to make it change constantly. Sasori, of course, then says something about how her use of it is only a mimicry of true art, as it only exists as long as she needs it to.

-At which point Konan steps up, and shows Sasori just how effective her art can be. Many puppets now have razor thin slices in them, and Sasori is forced to subject himself to Sakura's medical ministrations, during which she chastises him for insulting someone that is clearly more powerful than him. The cuts are healed quickly enough, but she keeps him afterwards to give him a general checkup since she wants to know if he's actually been taking care of himself.

-Later that night, Tobi attempts to assassinate Sakura. This time, he uses poisons. The result is she gets sick the next day (thank you, Sasori).

-People trying to assassinate Sakura again? For shame. Pein decides that, since it was poison, it was probably Sasori's fault. Ergo, he has to take care of her until she gets better. Kakuzu threatens to steal Sasori's soul and trade it to the devil if his new apprentice dies.

-Sasori does take care of said girl, and, taking a blood sample, recognizes the poison as one of the ones he helped her form an immunity (or at least resistance) to. He teases her lightly over it, but helps make her comfortable anyways (and, in a way, proves his innocence, with Sakura at least. Why would he try to kill her using a poison he made her immune to, after all? He'd at least use one she wasn't immune to).

-True. In a far corner of the base, Tobi curses his luck. Unfortunately, Deidara passes by right at that moment, and begins to suspect something. On the other hand, Kakuzu decides to teach Sakura business theory so that she knows what to do with what she steals once she has it in her hands. Ergo, Sakura has to read a large number of economics textbooks while bedridden.

-Well, at least she won't get bored. And she still has her puppet slave to do her bidding in the meantime. Deidara decides that it's his duty to investigate this stuff (mostly because it's his Danna's innocence on the line, but partially because Tobi might have tried to kill his plaything).

-Of course, he decides to go about it in a completely ridiculous manner, and drags Itachi and Hidan into it. Half of their 'spying' is them making fun of little genin and Academy students by hiding in bushes with binoculars and bad camouflage paint.

-So, they end up stalking Tobi in said manner during his grocery run (since it's his turn). Meanwhile, Itachi brings Deidara's earlier evidence to Sasori, who begins to take his own measures to obtain evidence.

-Kakuzu walks in on Itachi and Sasori's planning, but their heads are rather close together over a paper as they discuss something, and while they manage to hide the paper, they don't realize in time what it looks like… which leads to Kakuzu assuming SasoIta or ItaSaso… Of course, he tells Sakura and Hidan when he next sees them.

-Hidan ends up laughing hysterically. Sakura, on the other hand, sees immense blackmail potential. After all, both Itachi and Sasori are well known criminals... and any well-known _anything_ is guaranteed to have a fanbase.

-Sakura decides to get revenge for the irritation that Sasori treated her with during her first week there by… setting up a correspondence with Ino via messenger bird and scroll, just for the sake of exchanging gossip. Ergo, Konoha gossip gets to Sakura (ZOMG, KURENAI'S PREGGERS! IT'S ASUMA-SENSEI'S!) and Akatsuki gossip gets to Ino, and thus Konoha, and thus the world (You know, Kakuzu walked in on Itachi and Sasori yesterday. They were either planning something or, and sensei thinks it's the latter, KISSING).

-Ino is, of course, greatly surprised when the (likely stolen) messenger bird shows up at her window. She is equally surprised to find that Sakura sent it, and naturally goes about spreading her new gossip material as soon as she receives it... largely freaking out poor Sasuke. Naruto, on the other hand, quickly wonders how she's getting her new material, and Ino ends up telling Sakura on a side note on her next message that Tsunade would welcome her back when she returns, as she hasn't gone down the 'true' path of a nukenin yet.

-Sakura is confused by that, but brushes it off in favor of going over the new gossip that was also in Ino's letter. Then she catches Zetsu reading over her shoulder.

-She, of course, jumps in surprise and says something about just keeping in contact with her old friend.

-He asks what else she's been writing, and she shakily takes out all the other letters, including the doubled copies that she made of her originals so that she could look over what she wrote afterwards. Zetsu reads through, and the white side bursts out laughing after only a few letters. Then he suggests a few other embarrassing things about Akatsuki that she could spread via Ino. Sakura's only rules are not to go overboard, and not to embarrass Kakuzu (teacher!), Zetsu (helping!), Konan (scary! but nice...), or Pein (TERRIFYING! but... wait, just terrifying...).

-Zetsu and Sakura stay up the whole night, and what was originally just exchanging blackmail becomes an all-out gossip-fest. They even get snacks and nail polish and Sakura lets Zetsu do her hair.

-A few weeks later, Sakura ends up working with the artists due to Kakuzu thinking their most recent mission would be a good learning experience for her, since she needs to learn to work with/ around more teams than just him and Hidan (Deidara being fully supportive of the notion and Sasori not exactly against it). While she's just there to rob everyone blind and make a profit, the artists themselves are actually working on an assassination. Of course, this creates problems when Team 10's latest client is their target.

-Sakura actually acts a little awkward around them, but it is later revealed to be a distraction for two things:

1. So that Sasori and Deidara could get the client (unnecessary, but they appreciate the effort).

2. It's an act so that Team Ten doesn't notice her stealing their things… including knowledge about a certain Jutsu from Asuma…

-As she leaves, she (of course) says something that makes them notice she stole the clothes off their backs before running (which leads to blushing and yelling, and Deidara smiling smugly, greatly amused when they meet up again).

-On the way back, the three stop off at a bar…

-And Sasori gets alcohol into his system for the first time in over twenty years. Unfortunately for both Deidara and Sakura, who were hoping to see him drunk, he only has a single cup of low alcohol-content sake, which isn't enough to get him even buzzed, despite his relatively low tolerance.

-After grudgingly realizing his Danna isn't going to get hammered any time soon, Deidara decides to get drunk himself. Naturally, after getting buzzed, he starts trying to get Sakura to join him in the land of alcohol.

-In revenge, she pushes him out a window. Thankfully, it's a ground floor window, but he still lands on his face. The next morning, medic and puppeteer drag his a** back to the base.

-The next night, when Kakuzu asks about her mission (and collects the money she made on it… good girl) and discovers Deidara tried to get her drunk, he decides it'd be best to take protective measures. The day after, Deidara feels like something's… missing, but can't figure out what.

-Later that day, it's revealed Kakuzu stole a portion of his free will… and gave it to Sakura. Meaning, if she says 'jump' (until she takes mercy on said bomber and returns it), he has no choice but to respond 'how high?'

-She drags him with her to go cliff-diving. Hidan comes along to see how it goes. This, of course, means that Kakuzu and Sasori come along, just to see how badly this is going to go.

-During this occurrence, Hidan annoys the others enough to be pushed off the cliff, Deidara is forced into jumping off multiple times, and Sakura just has fun, jumping off with Deidara when he's not being forced off as punishment, since she's positive she won't die (mostly due to Deidara facing worse punishment if he lets her).

-The next day, Sakura orders Deidara to carry her piggyback around the base... and then to help her kidnap a friend from Konoha because she's been missing them and kind of wants some non-criminal company for a few days.

-And so, they hatch a plan to kidnap someone. Said plan... mostly involves waiting outside the gate for said someone to come by.

-Since it was decided that that was as good a time as any to break off the story, you get to decide who. Have fun.

As for relations... here's our discussion on that (**Phoenix: this is plucked directly from our conversation, involving our discussion. Surprisingly, I'm the whiny one. Not that I imagine Dark-heika to be whiny, but the fact that I'm admitting to my "whininess" online…)**:

**D: **Hm... I think that:

-Nagato would remain professional, though he'd come to count her among the sane ones (unless she's in her slasher mode, AKA when Hidan presses a berserk button).

-Konan would attempt the same, but would end up fawning over her eventually (off and on at least).

-Kakuzu would be the crazy old uncle/father figure

-Hidan would eventually grow to somewhere between protective older brother and cool older brother, although closer to the former (but only when it counts).

-Deidara would share his role with Hidan, but would be closer to the cool older brother than the overprotective one.

-Sasori would remain mad at her for quite some time, but his assassination attempts would eventually fade into somewhere between half-hearted attempts and secretly giving her an immunity to most poisons (and might eventually teach her how to use them, depending on how things go).

-Itachi would remain distant, as he doesn't want to accidentally give Sasuke a reason not to kill him

-Kisame will likely end up as the 'cool uncle'.

-Lastly, Zetsu will forever freak her out

-and Tobi will likely end up as the infuriating little brother (going off apparent mental age) that's amusing on a good day, and varying shades of annoying the rest of the time.

As for psychological/ inevitable skill gains, she'd really develop her slasher smile, open her mind to less socially acceptable means of doing things, would be utterly desensitized to all manners of strangeness, would likely gain keen survival senses, would just generally get stronger, and would get really, really good at intimidating people by using her medic nin status.

**P: **Huh... you put a bit of thought into this. I like the idea of her softening up Nagato and eventually finding Zetsu awesome. Please?

And she could always steal Itachi's heart, and show it to him...

**D: **Sure, why not?

To prove he still has one? Cute.


	5. In Which A (Bad) Fight Takes Place

Ichigo's eyes widened as he saw the enormous crater caused by Sakura's punch into the ground. It was larger than any other crater he'd seen (that was caused just by a punch, anyway). Was she using kido of some sort?

There was silence for several seconds, the only noise coming from the still rumbling earth and the running footsteps of Sakura as she ran back to the group.

Just in time, too, since she only got out of the way as the shout came.

"**Kuchiyose no Jutsu!**"

Ichigo peered through the smoke, and then glanced around the group. Orihime seemed excited, but there was no confusion in her eyes. The shinobi seemed, at most, expectant, as though this was a normal occurrence for them. Only Ishida shared his confusion, and then even that fled as he stared beyond Ichigo, eyes wide.

Ichigo turned around, only to find himself staring into what seemed like a large red wall. He stepped back and stared up at the enormous toad in front of him.

"That has seriously got to be at _least_ as big as a Gillian."

Ishida shot him a disparaging look at that, but said nothing.

Orihime opened her mouth and raised a hand to wave and shout a hello to one of the large amphibians, but Konan's hand was over her mouth in a flash.

"Don't give away our position. At the moment, they only know of Jiraiya-sensei, the Uzumaki boy, and the Haruno girl here. The rest of us are still unknowns to them, and that is an advantage I do not wish to lose. Do you understand me?"

Orihime nodded.

"Good. Now watch."

They did.

They gaped.

They stumbled back as a shockwave rolled over them.

The fight had begun.

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto glared through the dust that was spread out below him. He couldn't really see much, as high up as he was on Gamahiro's head, but he tried anyway. Next to him, Jiraiya balanced on Gamabunta's head and spoke to the giant toad boss, the reason for which became apparent as Gamambunta took a huge breath and blew away most of the dust.

He gritted his teeth at what was revealed.

Sasuke, in a strange outfit that Naruto would have mocked were the situation not so serious.

Orochimaru, as creepy as ever.

Kabuto, who seemed suspiciously calm.

A bunch of curse-sealed Oto nin at stage two.

Oh yeah.

This fight was going to be _huge_.

o.o.o.o.o

Yahiko fell to the ground, and would have been laughing uproariously had Konan not wrapped a paper gag around his mouth. Nagato put a hand to his head, and sighed. This was ridiculous.

Yahiko finally calmed down enough for Konan to take off the gag, particularly once they began to hear the sounds of fighting from Naruto and Jiraiya. Sakura had rushed right back out after the toads had appeared.

"He's dressed like a stripper!" Yahiko gasped out, continuing to laugh, albeit more quietly.

And then a curious monster, actually a man under a curse seal, caught sight of them. That ended any chance of conversation they may have had.

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto leaped forward, driving a Rasengan towards Sasuke's chest. At the point to which he was pushing the cursed seal, Sasuke would barely be affected by it even if Naruto _did_ get a direct hit, which was as unlikely as Sakura growing a chest the size of Tsunade's anytime in the next few years.

…Naruto really hoped that Sakura hadn't learned to read minds from Ino.

The continued to fight, and then Naruto heard a snort from behind him.

"You call that a sword?"

Naruto glanced back to see the Kurosaki guy again. The boy with the orange hair uncrossed his arms, reached back, and pulled out his own enormous sword.

"Now _this…_ _this_ is a sword."

Naruto wasn't sure if this was a good idea.

He went along with it anyway.

o.o.o.o.o

Kabuto was a difficult opponent to fight.

Sakura's fist smashed into the ground again, disrupting the footing of many of the fighters around her. She quickly spun and tried to slam her foot through Kabuto's chest (again), but he dodged (_again_) and fired a spray of senbon at her (_**again**_).

Of course, Sakura was only a chunin (she dodged a slash of chakra scalpels), and despite being the apprentice of a Sannin (she pulled an Oto nin into the way of a wayward Katon headed her way), she was younger than Kabuto (she covered herself with a film of chakra to ward against splinters and destroyed a tree, and from the sounds of it managed to nick someone in the eye with the shards), and he had been Tokubetsu level back when she was a genin (she threw a poison kunai that he just barely ducked to the side of), and had also been training under a Sannin (he made a few handsigns and something in the air shifted).

Sakura's eyes narrowed as she disrupted yet another genjutsu that Kabuto tried to lay over her. Her eyes didn't waver, even when she caught sight of the "Quincy" boy that was presumably aiming at Kabuto's head, if the angle was anything to go by, knowing that if she took a closer look, she would give his position away.

Kabuto somehow sensed it anyway, and dodged needlessly as the arrow flew past him. Sakura did the same as it came closer to her, cursing her luck and the boy's aim.

She cursed Kabuto as well.

An agonized shout drew her attention to see the projectile sticking straight out of the eye socket of a man under the curse seal, standing only a few meters behind her. Even as she watched, the markings of the seal faded and the man fell to the ground, dead.

Sakura turned back around, and saw the Quincy boy again. He seemed sick to his stomach, as though this was his first time killing a man.

It probably was.

She'd take him to a Yamanaka for some first kill counseling later.

o.o.o.o.o

Sai wasn't quite sure how he had ended up partnering with the foreign girl for this fight, but he had. The girl wasn't very skilled at fighting—she only even had one attack—but her shield seemed to be almost impenetrable, and she held it up for a long time. It gave Sai somewhere to stay so that he could draw his own attacks without interference from the Oto nin.

Orihime was just glad that she didn't have to fight. She had seen Ichigo and Uryuu's faces as it hit them that they were actual killing people, human beings, not just purifying hollows or fighting to the almost death with shinigami.

She didn't want that kind of weight on her soul.

o.o.o.o.o

Jiraiya and Orochimaru simply had an epic battle full of epic with epic sound effects and epic moves. There was an epic moment as epic Ame leaders made an epic entrance and helped defeat Orochimaru in an epic way.

There was also an epic fail.

But that's not the (epic) point.

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto grit his teeth as his fight with Sasuke wore on. Every movement was difficult, after Sasuke had caught his arm with a strange Raiton spear that Naruto hadn't heard the name of. The skin was burned off, and Naruto was fairly certain that the electric shock had done something to his, whatchamacallit, nervous system. There was at least one injury on his each leg, probably more, and he couldn't drag out any more Kyuubi chakra. Things weren't going well.

"Hey, stripper boy!" Naruto's eyes widened as he saw an enormous Suiton hit Sasuke. He looked to the side, and saw Yahiko standing only a few feet to his side on Gamahiro's head. The man winked at him and turned back to the fight. "C'mon, kid. Let's blow this joint."

"Let's… what?" Naruto was confused.

Yahiko shook his head and chuckled lightly. "Nah, never mind. Let's just get this over with, alright?"

Naruto breathed heavily, but grinned nonetheless. "Yeah. Let's do this."

With that team-up, Sasuke never had a chance.

o.o.o.o.o

By the end of the fight, Orochimaru was dead at the hands of Jiraiya and his students, Sasuke was unconscious and being loudly mocked by Yahiko, and most of the Oto jounin were dead or dying.

Kabuto had slipped away when Sakura had been grabbed by Orochimaru as a hostage/meat shield against Jiraiya.

Ichigo and Ishida were rethinking everything they'd ever known, and in need of severe therapy.

Naruto was half-dead, but being healed by Sakura.

And Sai was being taught how to comfort people by Orihime.

It was a victory, they thought.

They thought wrong.

o.o.o.o.o

**And now for something completely different!**

Deidara had his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth as he worked to affix the small eyes to the computer mouse he held.

This was the tenth mouse he had done this to.

He glanced at the little pile on the floor once he finished the last three, making it a round dozen, and gathered them up quickly before running to the living room.

Deidara grinned as he poked Sasori. "Danna!" He whispered.

"Whatever it is, the answer is no." Sasori didn't move a muscle… or at least, he didn't move a limb at Deidara's intrusion of his personal space.

"Come on, please? I'll leave you alone for the rest of the day!" Deidara pleaded. Sasori turned to glare at him.

"And what," He began, "Could possibly be so important to you right now?"

"Tobi's back." Deidara blurted. "I have a dozen computer mice with eyes and a video camera with an empty disc. Can you help me get some blackmail?"

Sasori rubbed his eyes. He sighed, finally folding, after several more minutes of wheedling on Deidara's part. "Fine. What do you need me to do?"

Deidara grinned again, and dumped out all the mice. "Can you make them run around, un?"

Sasori raised an eyebrow, but acquiesced, attaching chakra strings to the mice and making them dash about.

"Why am I doing this?"

Deidara bounced on the spot, but didn't seem to be able to make up his mind. Finally, he just dashed off, shouting back over his shoulder, "I'll be back in a minute!"

And he was, with Tobi in tow. This wasn't altogether strange, but the strange, cat-eared headband on the orange-masked man's head was. With the way Tobi was plucking at it, Sasori assumed that Deidara had been the one to put it there.

"Sempai, what are you—?" Tobi began, but Deidara pointed to the plastic 'mice' that Sasori was still absentmindedly causing to skitter across the floor.

"Look, mice!"

Tobi twitched.

He wriggled.

He pounced.

He spent the next several minutes chasing after the toys every which way.

And Deidara got his blackmail.

o.o.o.o.o

**EDIT: As it turns out, I accidentally used an OC Toad instead of a canon one. I used the name Gamajusho (from Auryn, by Araceil), convinced that it was the name of Gamaken or Gamahiro. I went back and fixed it to Gamahiro, as it should be. MY apologies for the mixup.**

**A/N: This is short, sloppy, and late. There is a reason for that.**

**If you're tracking GC, AK:PCO, or Fly Free, you already know that I've been having a bit of a rough time recently (look at my DA page for further details). So has dark-heika. My problems really came crashing down on Monday, and that's when I had to just stave off writing completely for a few weeks. I considered putting this off like the others, but decided that, although it was short, it could stand alone as a chapter. All I really needed to add was a bit of the Tobi scene, the Author's Note, and the Untold Tale.**

**Also, the concept of basing Akatsuki relations here off of the ones in GC is winning in the poll by a landslide. You can already see the effects here, but if you really want to change that for any reason, go vote.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix.**

o.o.o.o.o

Untold Tales

Note: Chi-chan is Orochimaru, just us making fun of him.

Everything is always Chi-chan's fault. Even the stuff from before he was born.

Not everything. Obitobi wasn't his fault.

Just... a lot of things.

How do we know? Maybe he's the one that arranged Kannabi bridge.

Conspiracy theories are love.

…Well, at least he's not responsible for…

Great, now I can't think of anything Chi-chan couldn't have possibly been responsible for in any way. After all, if he's responsible for Kannabi, then since everything we know he had nothing to do with was done by Obitobi...

For all we know, he invented time travel and went back in time to kill Izuna.

And now he's potentially responsible for EVERYTHING. Including Madara.

Exactly.

EVERYTHING IS OROCHIMARU'S FAULT. IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TO MAKE SENSE.

For instance, the Sage of the Six Paths was originally an experiment of his.

…The only way we could make him responsible for more things going wrong is if we made the Juubi an experiment gone wrong.

Orochimaru is responsible for everything.

He even created Kishi and gave him the power to see into other dimensions. (I beat you. I just thought of a way to make Orochimaru even MORE responsible).

Completely agreed. Now he's responsible for the entire f***ing manga. And, naturally, for implanting Kishi into our dimension. Probably as some form of monitoring...

He's also responsible for making everyone else think he wasn't.

And the only ones to know the truth are Kishi (the troll), Kabuto (the trusted Dragon), and Suigetsu (who figured it out, but no one knows, because he's too scared to tell).

He's even responsible for the things that don't seem to be in his favor. Like, for example, his death was all so that he could get some more of Hashirama's cells to strengthen his control over Edo Tensei. And Madara's latest resurrection is all to test the abilities of a free soul that's been used as a summon for said technique, to see if it has as much potential as he thinks.

And if he ever feels that the story is going in a direction he doesn't like, he just reasserts his control over Kishimoto, and it swerves back in a direction that's in his favor again.

Science at its finest: the character brainwashing the author into giving him author powers by proxy.


	6. An Epilogue (Of Sorts)

"Done."

Jiraiya pulled back, tucking his sealing equipment away before smiling at his work. Before him sat a (very unhappy) Uchiha, complete with bound hands and feet, and now a chakra seal as well. He would normally be gagged, too, but he seemed quite… content to glare silently. Jiraiya looked up at the rest of the group. "Alright, who's carrying him?"

"I can walk."

"So the mute can talk after all?"

During the exchange of insults (Naruto ended up dragging him), Yahiko spoke quietly to Nagato and Konan. "You know, I have a feeling the stripper's going to make this trip a lot less pleasant than it could be."

"Yahiko?"

"Yes, Nagato?"

"Please shut up."

He didn't.

o.o.o.o.o

Kabuto glared at the retreating group from a distance, his teeth lightly clenched.

They'd killed Orochimaru-sama.

Jerking away, he took a deep breath to calm himself. What now? Revenge? …No. He couldn't fight them. He wasn't strong enough. Not alone.

_Alone…_

Kabuto felt a smirk growing as he ran towards the nearest stronghold. Maybe he could do it. He could fulfill some of Orochimaru's wishes after all, even if only one. He would construct an army. He would strike the leaf. And he would win.

o.o.o.o.o

When they'd gotten back to the village, the first thing the Haruno girl did was drag him and Ishida off to… a flower shop.

He could kind of see why she'd bring Ishida, but why him? Better yet, why both of them?

Ichigo looked around a little. It was just a simple flower shop. But something about it… he leaned over to Ishida. "Hey, is it just me, or does this place remind you of the getaboshi's place?"

"Oi, boys."

The two looked up at Haruno. She had another girl with her, now; she waved at the two of them before Haruno got their attention again. "This is Yamanaka Ino. Due to the nature of her family's techniques, they tend to be good psychologists. You've officially been signed up for a therapy session for dealing with your first kill. Have fun."

o.o.o.o.o

Suigetsu's feet pounded the forest floor as he ran. The other experiments had gone nuts when they'd heard Orochimaru was killed, especially since the fight had jostled more than one cage. He'd escaped when someone had broken his own.

A flash of blue in his peripheral vision - accompanied by a lot of black, and a little bit of red - caught his attention.

Hoshigaki Kisame.

A pause, broken by a smirk. "Mangestu's little brother… I was just going to check on you."

"On Orochimaru, you mean."

"Itachi's interest. You tend to do that when a sannin and his apprentice want you dead."

"And I want you dead."

"Oh?"

"You're not going to just hand me Samehada, after all. I want your sword, and I'm going to get it."

Two stares meet, appraising one another.

The silence took hold again, until the shark man broke it with a sigh. "I know where little Zabuza's sword is. Fetch that, and meet me here in… two weeks? Do that, and consider yourself apprenticed. Better than squandering your talents and simply getting yourself thrashed in a couple years. Less of a nuisance to me, too."

Suigetsu's grin returned, wider than ever. "It's not gonna stop me from taking yours."

The answering smirk was as expected. "I look forward to it, brat. The sword's in Wave, now hop to it."

He'd left before Hoshigaki had finished the sentence. He'd get the sword, alright. And, in time, Samehada would be his as well.

…As soon as he got some clothes on.

o.o.o.o.o

It was dark.

Then again, it was always dark. Until it got bright. But that only happened every so often. It wasn't going to happen right now… right? There was a good chance of someone getting killed, when the door that let in light was opened. He didn't like killing people.

No matter how much blood was already on his hands.

"Girls… wait… no, guys. Guys are better. Eh… nah, girls, girls… or actually, guys… hm… a guy. Nope… a girl, after all… okay. Got it." He looked up at where he knew the light would come from. "If the next person to open that door is a girl, I'll kill her."

The locks on the door clacked as someone undid them. The door cracked.

"… No." His eyes narrowed. "A guy… if it's a guy, I'll kill him."

The door opened.

A soft, feminine face. A girl.

He lost. This time.

"Juugo." Soft red hair, ragged on one side, framed her face. Eyes hidden behind glasses… a caretaker? "Come with me."

Or maybe not.

He glared at the door. "What do you want with me? Don't you know I'm dangerous?"

"I come to request your power in service of Uchiha Sasuke."

"Uchiha… Sasuke…?" _Kimimaro…_ His glare turned… less adamant before hardening again. "I won't. Not unless he's here. I won't risk killing again."

"Don't you know, Juugo?" The woman tilted her head, arching an eyebrow. "Sasuke-kun was captured by Konoha-nin. We're going to free him."

o.o.o.o.o

Aizen leaned back in his chair, watching as Ulquiorra escorted in his prize from a little trip into hell. Long, slick black hair covered pale skin and amber eyes lined with purple markings… he smiled. "Welcome to my domain, Orochimaru-san. I trust you found your trip here agreeable?"

A light tug on cuffs. The jingle of a chain. A smirk in return. "Quite…"

"Sosuke Aizen."

"Aizen-san. I wasn't looking forward to spending eternity in hell, after all. But I'm guessing this wasn't an act of charity…?"

A faint chuckle. "Correct." Rustle of cloth as the brown-haired shinigami leaned forward. "The force that killed you was a combined effort of the Gotei Thirteen and beings from your own dimension. In light of this, it isn't unreasonable to assume they'll be working together in future. You're simply the best option for getting an idea of what I'm up against."

"Perhaps…" No change in facial expression, except perhaps a glimmer of interest… if only to disguise the spark of panic. Chakra acting weird. Reserves low. No escape, no hidden edge, no upper hand, no manipulation… yet. "But first, there is something I'll need…"

o.o.o.o.o

Anko stretched, scratching at her shoulder absently. She'd gone light on the alcohol tonight. Really, she had. Or maybe she hadn't. Either way, it wasn't enough for her to forget her senses.

_She still knew the feeling of being watched._

She'd felt it more than enough times to know it, and years of training under Orochi-freaking-maru had taught her that more than anything else. The violent chill of someone behind you, always behind you, waiting for you to slip up so they could slip a kunai between your ribs, slit your throat, stab you in the back…

_Something was following her._

She knew this for a fact. So why did she have to convince herself? Because that feeling was the only sign they were even there. She was a Tokubetsu Jonin, for Kami's sake. While she'd be the… perhaps not the first, but one of the first to admit she suffered from bouts of paranoia (what competent ninja didn't?) but it wasn't like that this time, damnit!

From the shadows, a frown formed on the soul's face. The girl was aware of him. She would have been fun to fight. Shame he couldn't. Not without making a scene. Not here.

Moonlight gleamed off metal as the scythe swung down.

o.o.o.o.o

"Why do I follow you?"

The black, panther-like hollow turned back to glare at his… companion? Partner? Comrade? Whatever he was. "What do you mean?"

The lupine hollow blinked before looking off to the side. "You and I are… very different. I have no doubt you're the only reason I'm still… well, not alive, but existing. But why do you keep me around? Why not just devour me, too? Moreover… it'd be better for everyone if I stopped you from leaving this place. Why do I help you?"

The panther tilted his head, his eyes narrow. They were golden now, like with most of the lost souls who lived in the cursed desert, but the wolf could too easily imagine the red glint they carried in life. "This land breeds selfishness. Even if it's to protect… you want to return to that place, too. And I have a greater chance of leaving these sands if I keep someone with me, as much as I loathe to admit it."

"But why me?" His mouth cracked slightly, as though to bare his fangs, despite them being a permanent piece of his mask. "Why not someone who would share your goals, and not turn against you when you leave?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He flared his massive feathered wings. "You possess the same drive as I, for better or worse. We will return to Konoha, or we will once again die trying."

o.o.o.o.o

A/N- Sorry if this is a little on the short side. Normally, I'd rattle of some excuse about being pressed for time, but that really wasn't it this week; it's more that this is an epilogue of sorts; part I is now at an end. Naturally, you still have the rest of this fic to look forward to, but… well. Anyways, I pulled up a style I've been playing around with recently since it seemed to fit the chapter better. Experiments are fun, and all that.

Anyways, a quick cameo of sorts for the two in the last bit. If you can guess who, you earn a digital cookie.

**Phoenix's Notes: Book One was always planned to be a little on the short side. Fear not, Books Two and Three will be quite a bit longer. And I think that, while this one wasn't a very large success, the next two will be. We'll hopefully also have a cover done by then. The sequel is as of yet unnamed, but you'll know it when you see it.**

**You can probably guess who one of them is. I doubt you can guess the other.**

**Now, a lot of people voted on the GC-poll. **_**A lot**_**. I didn't expect that many people to vote, considering how many of you actually review regularly (that is to say, one. Ttran2323. He gets a cookie. A big one. And I don't even know his real name). So, at least review this last chapter here. The results of the poll, from 21 voters:**

**14 said yes.**

**3 told me to just do whatever Dark-heika and I decided on.**

**2 hadn't read GC (I feel sorry for you now…)**

**2 hadn't read DMTNT (I wonder why they voted at all, but okay).**

**Nobody said no.**

**Ergo… looks like GC personalities will be used. There will be one main difference, concerning Tobi, but that's been planned for a while. You guys might enjoy it.**

…**Huh. My first multi-chapter story to actually be labeled as complete without being abandoned. Sweet. This is a milestone.**

**So, basically, here's the last word: advertise this story. Dark-heika and I have a lot of fun writing it, but we like feedback too. So please… review? (Except Ttran2323. You just keep doing what you're doing and have cookies.)**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix.**

Untold Tales

A simple one this time: Yahiko starts a self-help group with Gin called God Complexes Anonymous alongside Gin. Light, Aizen, and Nagato are forced into attendance. Naraku, Orochimaru, Szayel, and Voldemort try joining, but are thrown in the noodle incident pit because they are detrimental to the group's goals. Konan takes session notes. Ryuk… I leave him up to you.

Also, for some bizarre reason, Tsunade, Rangiku, Yoruichi, and Samui create BBA, or 'Big Boobs Anonymous'. They invite Konan to join.


End file.
